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From By  Nicole Leonard | WHYY Marsella Elie, a canvasser for Philly Counts, gives out Narcan, the opioid overdose reversal drug, to a North Philadelphia resident as part of the city's door-knocking campaign in neighborhoods heavily hit by the opioid crisis. Kimberly Paynter/WHYY hide caption Marsella Elie, a canvasser for Philly Counts, gives out Narcan, the opioid overdose reversal drug, to a North Philadelphia resident as part of the city's door-knocking campaign in neighborhoods heavily hit by the opioid crisis. On a narrow North Philadelphia street lined with row houses and a busy auto body shop, Marsella Elie climbs the front steps of a private residence and knocks hard on the front door. A middle-aged man appears with a wary look on his face. "Hello sir, how are you doing today?" asks Elie. She wears a royal blue jacket embroidered with the city government's Liberty Bell logo. "Hold on, two seconds. My name is Marsella. I'm working with the city. You heard about the overdoses that are going around in the neighborhood, right?" This story was produced in partnership with KFF Health News. The man gives a cautious nod. Elie gestures to the pamphlets and booklets she's holding, about drug overdoses and local addiction treatment programs. She holds up a box of Narcan, a common brand of the opioid overdose reversal medication naloxone. "So basically, what we're trying to do is get this in everybody's household. Have you ever heard of this before?" Elie asks before handing the man a tote bag full of the resource materials, fentanyl test strips, and the box of Narcan. Elie and other part-time city workers and volunteers are carrying out a new large-scale, citywide door-to-door movement that aims to equip private households with naloxone and other drug overdose prevention supplies. City officials and advocates hope that this proactive approach will normalize naloxone as an every-day medicine cabinet item, and prevent more people from dying of overdoses, especially Black residents. Mitchell Bormack, a canvasser for Philly Counts, knocks on a door in North Philadelphia as part of an initiative with the city's Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity to get harm reduction resources into homes in areas heavily hit by the opioid crisis. Kimberly Paynter/WHYY hide caption Mitchell Bormack, a canvasser for Philly Counts, knocks on a door in North Philadelphia as part of an initiative with the city's Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity to get harm reduction resources into homes in areas heavily hit by the opioid crisis. A record 1,413 people died in Philadelphia in 2022 from drug overdoses, according to city data. Deaths were up 20 percent among Black residents from the year before, with many happening in private homes. "The best thing we can do to make these things more accessible is to just give them to people," says Keli McLoyd, director of the city's Opioid Response Unit. "We're not asking you if you're using drugs. The goal here is really to build sort of a collective responsibility." "As Black and brown folks, as we saw during the COVID epidemic, nobody's coming to save us. For us, this is a tool that we can use to save ourselves," she adds. The aim of the canvassing initiative is twofold: bring prevention supplies directly to people who may not otherwise seek it out themselves, and spread awareness about overdoses beyond the neighborhood of Kensington. That's the epicenter of the city's addiction epidemic, where drug use, and harm-reduction support, are concentrated and most visible. Canvassers intend to knock on more than 100,000 doors in Philadelphia's overdose "hotspots" — zip codes with escalating rates of opioid overdose deaths in recent years, many in Black and brown communities. An opioid crisis resource kit containing Narcan, fentanyl test strips, and information on how to get addiction treatment and more harm reduction resources. Kimberly Paynter/WHYY hide caption An opioid crisis resource kit containing Narcan, fentanyl test strips, and information on how to get addiction treatment and more harm reduction resources. These widening racial disparities in overdose deaths are just another long-term consequence of the War on Drugs, McLoyd says. Those policies meant decades of aggressive police tactics, racial profiling, and lengthy prison sentences, disproportionately affecting people of color and their communities. Research shows that Black Americans still account for a disproportionate number of drug arrests and cases involving child protective services. "Because of that, it's very clear why Black or brown people might be hesitant to raise their hand and say, 'I'm a person who uses drugs, I need those resources,'" McLoyd says. Other cities and communities have initiated similar canvassing efforts to distribute naloxone and other supplies, albeit on a smaller scale or by targeting specific populations of people. What Philadelphia is doing could be a model for many other densely populated cities and communities, according to Daliah Heller, vice president of drug use initiatives at Vital Strategies, a public health organization working with local governments in seven states to address the opioid epidemic. "There's something intensely personal about a human engagement," Heller says. "And somebody knocking at your door to talk about drug use and overdose risk and that there's something that can be done, I think is really powerful." Mitchell Bormack, a canvasser for Philly Counts providing harm reduction resource kits, talked with North Philadelphia resident Katherine Camacho as part of an initiative with the city's Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity to get harm reduction resources into homes in areas heavily hit by the opioid crisis. Kimberly Paynter/WHYY hide caption Mitchell Bormack, a canvasser for Philly Counts providing harm reduction resource kits, talked with North Philadelphia resident Katherine Camacho as part of an initiative with the city's Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity to get harm reduction resources into homes in areas heavily hit by the opioid crisis. Over the years, naloxone has become more accessible than ever before, Heller points out. People can order it online and through the mail, it's available in specialized vending machines, and drug stores now sell Narcan nasal spray as an over-the-counter product. But data show that tens of thousands of Americans every year still die from opioid overdoses. Which means prevention efforts and messaging about the crisis are still not reaching some people, Heller says. "If you're meeting people where they're at, that means physically, that means in terms of what they know about something, what their perception is of something, and their beliefs," she says. "We need to think like that when we think about naloxone distribution." The Philadelphia canvassing project is funded in part by the city's share of settlement payouts from national lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors. The city is set to receive about $200 million total over roughly 18 years from settlements with AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, McKesson, and Johnson & Johnson. The initiative is staffed by many of the same people who initially started canvassing as part of the 2020 Census count. Not everyone answers the door for the canvassers. Some aren't home when they come around. In those cases, workers hang fliers on the door handles with some information about overdose risk, and contacts for further resources. After the first round, teams will later make a second sweep through neighborhoods to reach people they missed the first time around, and bring along language interpreters. On a recent Thursday, Philadelphia canvassers were knocking doors in the neighborhoods of Franklinville and Hunting Park. In this zip code, about 85 people died of drug overdoses in 2022, according to city data. It's a smaller figure than the 193 people who died of overdoses in Kensington the same year, but much higher than the few deaths seen in the city's most affluent neighborhoods. North Philadelphia resident Katherine Camacho expressed interest in becoming a "trusted messenger" with the opioid crisis outreach team when a canvasser approached her at her home. Kimberly Paynter/WHYY hide caption North Philadelphia resident Katherine Camacho expressed interest in becoming a "trusted messenger" with the opioid crisis outreach team when a canvasser approached her at her home. They approached resident Katherine Camacho on the sidewalk, as she came out of her garage. As they talked, Camacho told the teams she was aware of the overdose problem in her community and eagerly accepted a box of Narcan. "I will carry this with me, because like I said, sometimes you're in the street driving somewhere and you could save a life," Camacho told them. "And if you don't have these things, it's harder to do so, right?" Camacho said she's seen how the opioid crisis has caused suffering in her neighborhood and across the city. In regards to the new canvassing effort, she said she believes that "God is putting these people to help." As she headed inside, carrying the box of Narcan, Camacho said she wanted to do her part to help, too. This story comes from NPR's health reporting partnership with WHYY and KFF Health News. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Brian Mann Dr. João Goulão, director-general of the General Directorate for Intervention on Addictive Behaviours and Dependencies General Directorate, is widely credited with shifting Portugal's addiction response toward a focus on health care and treatment. Overdose deaths have plummeted. Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle/ via Getty Images hide caption Dr. João Goulão, director-general of the General Directorate for Intervention on Addictive Behaviours and Dependencies General Directorate, is widely credited with shifting Portugal's addiction response toward a focus on health care and treatment. Overdose deaths have plummeted. Talk to people addicted to street drugs in Lisbon, Portugal's capital, and you hear confusion and dismay over the carnage of overdose deaths taking place an ocean away in the U.S. Ana Batista, a soft-spoken woman in her 50s who's been addicted to heroin for years, said she hasn't lost a single friend or family member to a fatal overdose. "No, no, no," she said, speaking at a safe drug consumption clinic, where she had come to inject under the supervision of nurses and counselors. Liliana Santos, 41, a woman with a sad weathered face who had come to the clinic to smoke heroin, voiced similar bafflement. Had she lost friends or family? "No." Had she overdosed herself? She shook her head: "No, no." The contrast is striking. In the U.S., drug deaths are shatteringly common, killing roughly 112,000 people a year. In Portugal, weeks sometimes go by in the entire country without a single fatal overdose. Ana Batista, who asked that her face not be photographed, comes to a drug consumption clinic in Lisbon almost every day where she can use heroin under medical supervision. "It's different, very different," Batista said, adding that she feels safer and less alone. Tilda WIlson/NPR hide caption Ana Batista, who asked that her face not be photographed, comes to a drug consumption clinic in Lisbon almost every day where she can use heroin under medical supervision. "It's different, very different," Batista said, adding that she feels safer and less alone. Portugal has roughly the same population as the state of New Jersey. But while New Jersey alone sees nearly 3,000 fatal drug overdoses a year, Portugal averages around 80. "The statistics really speak for themselves," said Miguel Moniz, an anthropologist at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, who studies addiction policy in the U.S. and Portugal. What's different in Portugal? In the late 1990s, the country faced an explosion of heroin use. The drug was causing roughly 350 overdose deaths a year and sparked a wave of HIV/AIDS and other diseases linked to dirty needles. Portugal offers people in addiction an integrated network of services, including vans where residents can use street drugs under medical supervision. Tilda Wilson/NPR hide caption Portugal offers people in addiction an integrated network of services, including vans where residents can use street drugs under medical supervision. Portugal's leaders responded by pivoting away from the U.S. drug war model, which prioritized narcotics seizures, arrests and lengthy prison sentences for drug offenders. Instead, Portugal focused scarce public dollars on health care, drug treatment, job training and housing. The system, integrated into the country's taxpayer-funded national health care system, is free and relatively easy to navigate. "Someone who has problematic drug use isn't someone who is a criminal or someone who has a moral failing," Moniz said, describing Portugal's official view of addiction. "They're someone who has a health problem, a physical or a mental health problem," he said. "That's a tremendous societal shift." Many U.S. drug policy experts who've studied the Portugal model say it's clear parts of it worked far better than the tough-on-crime philosophy embraced by U.S. "I think they showed that when you make [addiction treatment] services extremely available to people who are struggling with problems of drugs, you get a lot of good outcomes," said Dr. Keith Humphreys, an addiction expert at Stanford University. There's one other big difference. Beginning in 2001, Portugal's national addiction strategy decriminalized personal drug use and reinvented the role of police. Municipal Police in Porto, Portugal regularly patrol areas used by drug consumers. Police in Portugal don't arrest people who use drugs. Instead they have a strong track record referring people in addiction to counseling and treatment. Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images hide caption Cops still work aggressively to break up major drug gangs and arrest people committing drug-related crimes like theft. They also disrupt open-air drug markets like the ones that have emerged in some U.S. cities. But when street cops in Portugal encounter people using small, personal-use amounts of drugs, there's no arrest. Instead, police schedule meetings for drug users with teams of counselors. While these sessions aren't compulsory, police are trained in strategies designed to encourage people to attend. "In the beginning, most policemen were very, very skeptical about this policy," said Artur Vaz, who leads Portugal's national police unit focused on drug trafficking. In the U.S., this role for law enforcement, serving as a bridge to social service programs, has faced a backlash and is often seen as ineffectual. In Oregon, for example, where small amounts of drugs were decriminalized in 2020, police regularly hand out information cards referring people to a drug counseling hotline. Court data shows drug users rarely call. In Portugal, by contrast, government data shows roughly 90% of people referred to drug counseling sessions by police do turn up, at least for an initial session. "Most [Portuguese] police have come to believe this is a balanced approach," Vaz said. "People who consume drugs should be treated by the health system, not the criminal system." As a consequence, people living with addiction face far less stigma, rarely serve jail or prison time, and don't live with criminal records. Ronnie Duchandre, who is addicted to alcohol and hashish, and also smokes crack, says police in Portugal are "our friends" and serve as part of the social safety network that helps drug users recover. Brian Mann/NPR hide caption Ronnie Duchandre, who is addicted to alcohol and hashish, and also smokes crack, says police in Portugal are "our friends" and serve as part of the social safety network that helps drug users recover. Ronnie Duchandre, who is addicted to alcohol and hashish and sometimes smokes crack cocaine on the streets of Lisbon, told NPR he views police as helpful. "The police is always our friend, as long as you speak with them properly," Duchandre said. With support from Portugal's system, he predicted that he would recover from his drug use. "It's not in one day that we reach the bottom," he said. "We can also go up and it's the same process, slowly up and up." Dr. João Goulão, Portugal's national drug czar, said street cops have emerged as a vital link between the most vulnerable drug users, like Duchandre, and opportunities for treatment. "Through the intervention of police, this is a unique opportunity to meet face-to-face with people we otherwise would not see," he said. Liliana Santos, who lives in Lisbon, Portugal, is addicted to crack cocaine and heroin. It's a hard life but unlike drug users in the U.S., she has free access to healthcare, which means she has a much lower risk of overdose or death compared with people living with addiction in the U.S. Brian Mann/NPR hide caption Liliana Santos, who lives in Lisbon, Portugal, is addicted to crack cocaine and heroin. It's a hard life but unlike drug users in the U.S., she has free access to healthcare, which means she has a much lower risk of overdose or death compared with people living with addiction in the U.S. Police referrals are only one of many pathways to drug treatment in Portugal. "Decriminalizing drug use is a good step," Goulão said. "The more you have other kinds of responses available, the better." Experts here say people who use drugs are constantly nudged toward health care and addiction treatment, including methadone programs and housing. A person addicted to heroin prepares to inject at a consumption clinic in Lisbon, under the supervision of nurses. People in Portugal are 45 times less likely to die from an overdose compared with people in the U.S. Brian Mann/NPR hide caption A person addicted to heroin prepares to inject at a consumption clinic in Lisbon, under the supervision of nurses. People in Portugal are 45 times less likely to die from an overdose compared with people in the U.S. The results are striking. Over the last 20 years, Portugal cut drug deaths by 80% and reduced the number of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis cases in half. During that same period, U.S. drug deaths exploded by more than 500%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers predict unless America somehow changes course, the overdose crisis will kill a total of 2.2 million people in the U.S. by the end of this decade. A debate is underway in the U.S. over whether elements of Portugal's system could save lives here. "If we stopped arrests and did nothing else, that's a positive intervention because of the well-documented harms of incarceration [on people with addiction]," said Morgan Godvin, a former heroin user who now studies drug policy in Portland, Ore. A growing number of cities and states around the U.S. have begun to de-emphasize drug war-era policies, shifting away from drug arrests and funding more treatment. California voters approved Proposition 14 a decade ago, reducing drug possession from a felony to a misdemeanor. In 2020, Oregon voters decriminalized personal-use amounts of drugs and provided more funding for health care and counseling. Advocates of those changes hoped they would quickly reduce drug deaths and serve as a model for the rest of the U.S., but implementation has been rocky, and in many places fatal overdoses have risen. Critics say drugs were fully or partially decriminalized before other social programs, like the ones in Portugal, were in place and widely available to pick up the slack. "We still suck at access to voluntary treatment," Godvin acknowledged, speaking of drug policy reforms in Oregon. "We need a vast voluntary system, so that people can engage with treatment when they want it." Drug policy experts say these relatively new experiments have been crippled by a lack of funding, by strict U.S. drug laws that make some harm reduction measures illegal, and by this country's complicated, costly and often poorly regulated addiction treatment system. The spread of deadly fentanyl and a national surge in homelessness have also led to a spike in highly visible drug use, sparking a backlash among many voters and politicians who want streets, neighborhoods and parks cleaned up quickly. There are now efforts underway to recriminalize drugs, and toughen law enforcement's response, in California and Oregon. Humphreys, at Stanford University, says he still supports dramatically expanding access to addiction care, similar to Portugal's model. But he doesn't support decriminalization and believes police and criminal courts in the U.S. will need to play a more aggressive role forcing people with severe addiction off the streets and into treatment. "They don't have relationships, they're isolated, so if there's no law [enforcement] pressure, there's no pressure at all," he said. Miguel Moniz, the anthropologist at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, disagrees. He says the data shows Portugal's approach, combining decriminalization and health care, is more humane and more successful. People in Portugal are now 45 times less likely to die from drug overdoses, compared with people in the U.S. — and street crime in cities like Lisbon has dropped. Drug-related street crime in Portugal has dropped along with overdoses. "There's an impression in the U.S. that if you decriminalize drugs, it's a wild west," said Miguel Moniz at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. "That hasn't been the case in Portugal." Brian Mann/NPR hide caption Drug-related street crime in Portugal has dropped along with overdoses. "There's an impression in the U.S. that if you decriminalize drugs, it's a wild west," said Miguel Moniz at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. "That hasn't been the case in Portugal." "There's an impression in the U.S. that if you decriminalize drugs, it's a Wild West where everyone uses drugs," Moniz said. "That hasn't been the case in Portugal." But as the death toll from the U.S. overdose crisis mounts, Moniz voiced skepticism that American policymakers will have the political will or patience to pivot to a focus on health care and social services. "There's a different political environment in the U.S," Moniz said. "The way health care is funded is completely different. The role of police in American society is different. So to talk about the Portuguese experience [being adopted in the U.S.] is complicated." — Tilda Wilson, an NPR Kroc Fellow, contributed field reporting. Inês Pereira Rodrigues provided translations. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Brian Mann Portugal's focus on care and treatment over law enforcement and incarceration is widely viewed as a model for helping people recover from opioid addiction. But it's become a flashpoint in the U.S. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: Portugal cut its number of fatal drug overdoses by 80% at a time when drug deaths here in the U.S. were exploding out of control. Now the Portugal model, which focuses more on health care and less on tough crime laws, has emerged as a flashpoint in the debate over how to solve America's fentanyl crisis. NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann spent time in Portugal, and he's here to tell us more. Hi there.BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Hi, Juana.SUMMERS: So, Brian, just help us understand the stakes here. How stark is the drug crisis here in the U.S. compared with Portugal?MANN: You know, it's a heartbreaking disparity. The U.S. and Portugal both experienced deadly opioid epidemics beginning back in the early 2000. But Portugal's response appears to have really worked. Drug deaths there are now incredibly rare, while they're common in the U.S. Fatal overdoses are now a leading cause of death for young Americans. Here's one data point that really stunned me. Portugal has roughly the population of the state of New Jersey. But while New Jersey sees nearly 3,000 drug deaths a year, Portugal averages fewer than 80.SUMMERS: That's incredible. Brian, what can you tell us about what accounts for that sharp difference?MANN: Yeah. Fentanyl is part of it, right? The powerful street opioid is killing a lot of Americans right now, and it hasn't caught on yet among drug users in Portugal. No one's really sure why. But even before fentanyl hit, the U.S. and Portugal were moving in really different directions. Over the last 20 years, the U.S. responded to rising rates of addiction with tough drug laws, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on police and prisons. Portugal, by contrast, invested in drug treatment and health care. Keith Humphreys is at Stanford University. He's one of the top U.S. experts on addiction, and he studied the Portugal model.KEITH HUMPHREYS: I think they showed when you make services extremely available to people who are struggling with problems with drugs, you get a lot of good outcomes.MANN: And, Juana, Portugal's drug treatment programs are free. They're widely available, part of the taxpayer-funded national health care system. And, again, this is a huge contrast with the U.S., where even now, in the midst of this deadly overdose crisis, it's often really, really hard to find affordable, high-quality addiction care.SUMMERS: And, Brian, I mean, listening to you describe Portugal's approach, it sounds like it's very promising. So what makes it so controversial here in the United States?MANN: A lot of it comes down to the role of police. Beginning in 2001, Portugal decriminalized personal use amounts of drugs, and that made a huge difference for people living with addiction like Ronnie Duchandre, who I met on the street of Portugal's capital, Lisbon.RONNIE DUCHANDRE: Nice to meet you.MANN: Duchandre lives in a tent outside a church in Lisbon. He's addicted to alcohol and hashish and also sometimes smokes crack.DUCHANDRE: (Speaking Portuguese).MANN: Duchandre told me he fell into addiction gradually. "I believe, with some help, maybe with some education, I will come out of it," he said. Like most people who use drugs in Portugal, he's getting a lot of help - counseling and medical care, again, all of it free - which means Duchandre has a much lower risk of dying compared with drug users in the U.S. And he's also not afraid of being arrested. When I asked about police, Duchandre actually got excited.DUCHANDRE: (Speaking Portuguese).MANN: "The police are our friends," Duchandre said. "As long as I'm respectful, they're respectful and helpful." I spoke about this very different role for police in Portugal with Dr. Joao Goulao. He's Portugal's national drug czar. He said convincing law enforcement to shift from a get-tough approach to drugs to this focus on health care changed everything.JOAO GOULAO: Decriminalizing drug use is a good step - treatment, harm reduction measures, shelters.MANN: Now, it's important to say, Juana, that police do still play a big role in Portugal with street drug use. But instead of making arrests, cops are trained to counsel and nudge people in addiction toward treatment.SUMMERS: So police in Portugal - they're more like social workers.MANN: Yeah. Part of the time, that's right. And they regularly do get people in addiction to go to these addiction counseling sessions. Street cops in Portugal, of course, do more traditional work as well. They break up drug gangs. They work to protect neighborhoods from drug-related crime. And they've actually had a lot of success disrupting the kind of open-air drug markets that we've seen in some U.S. cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco. I spoke about this with Miguel Moniz. He's an anthropologist at the University of Lisbon who studies drug policy.MIGUEL MONIZ: There's an impression in the U.S. that if you decriminalize, then everybody - then it's a Wild West where everyone uses drugs. That hasn't been the case in Portugal.MANN: And this really is the major fear in the U.S. among politicians and other critics who oppose the Portugal model. They worry that if we decriminalize drugs and change the role of police in the way Portugal's done, we'll see a lot more rampant drug use, more drug-related crime.SUMMERS: But if Portugal's system is saving lives there without creating chaos, why couldn't or wouldn't that work here?MANN: Yeah. This is interesting. I mean, some experts believe the U.S. is just culturally different. In Portugal, people who use drugs still live in fairly tight-knit communities. They're surrounded by families. Keith Humphreys, the researcher at Stanford who we heard from a moment ago - he thinks people experiencing severe addiction here in the U.S. don't have those kinds of support networks.HUMPHREYS: The challenges we have here is they don't have a job that's putting any pressure on them. They don't have relationships. They're isolated. And if there's no law pressure, there is no pressure at all.MANN: So Humphreys thinks police in American cities will have to keep playing a more aggressive, forceful role, arresting drug users and using courts to get them off the streets and into treatment.SUMMERS: Brian, as I understand it, despite those concerns, there are places here in the United States where some parts of the Portugal model are being tried. Tell us about that. How's it going?MANN: Well, it's been rocky. A lot of cities across the U.S., especially in states like California, New York and Oregon, have slowly turned away from the drug war model, adopting some of Portugal's strategies. That means fewer drug arrests, more of a focus on harm reduction and physical and mental health care. Supporters hoped that would quickly reduce drug deaths. But so far, it really hasn't worked out that way. Drug deaths have continued to rise. One problem appears to be that, in some places, drugs have been decriminalized before really good treatment programs are widely available to pick up the slack. I spoke about this with Morgan Godvin. She's a drug policy expert and activist in Portland, Ore., where drugs were decriminalized in 2020.MORGAN GODVIN: We still suck at access to voluntary treatment - treatment on demand for everyone who wants it. I want our policymakers to see that decriminalization does not equal chaos.MANN: So a lot of addiction experts I talked to do believe creating a treatment system more like Portugal's would save a lot of lives in the U.S. and help get people off the street, but it would take time. And meanwhile, a lot of people, including a lot of voters and politicians, are impatient right now. They want public drug use cleaned up. In Oregon, there's a big movement to recriminalize drug use that looks like it might succeed. There's growing pressure in California to toughen drug laws again and boost arrests. Juana, no one I talked to believes we're going to make the kind of big pivot away from drug war-era policies that put Portugal on this very different path.SUMMERS: NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann. Brian, thank you.MANN: Thank you.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: Portugal cut its number of fatal drug overdoses by 80% at a time when drug deaths here in the U.S. were exploding out of control. Now the Portugal model, which focuses more on health care and less on tough crime laws, has emerged as a flashpoint in the debate over how to solve America's fentanyl crisis. NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann spent time in Portugal, and he's here to tell us more. Hi there. BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Hi, Juana. SUMMERS: So, Brian, just help us understand the stakes here. How stark is the drug crisis here in the U.S. compared with Portugal? MANN: You know, it's a heartbreaking disparity. The U.S. and Portugal both experienced deadly opioid epidemics beginning back in the early 2000. But Portugal's response appears to have really worked. Drug deaths there are now incredibly rare, while they're common in the U.S. Fatal overdoses are now a leading cause of death for young Americans. Here's one data point that really stunned me. Portugal has roughly the population of the state of New Jersey. But while New Jersey sees nearly 3,000 drug deaths a year, Portugal averages fewer than 80. SUMMERS: That's incredible. Brian, what can you tell us about what accounts for that sharp difference? MANN: Yeah. Fentanyl is part of it, right? The powerful street opioid is killing a lot of Americans right now, and it hasn't caught on yet among drug users in Portugal. No one's really sure why. But even before fentanyl hit, the U.S. and Portugal were moving in really different directions. Over the last 20 years, the U.S. responded to rising rates of addiction with tough drug laws, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on police and prisons. Portugal, by contrast, invested in drug treatment and health care. Keith Humphreys is at Stanford University. He's one of the top U.S. experts on addiction, and he studied the Portugal model. KEITH HUMPHREYS: I think they showed when you make services extremely available to people who are struggling with problems with drugs, you get a lot of good outcomes. MANN: And, Juana, Portugal's drug treatment programs are free. They're widely available, part of the taxpayer-funded national health care system. And, again, this is a huge contrast with the U.S., where even now, in the midst of this deadly overdose crisis, it's often really, really hard to find affordable, high-quality addiction care. SUMMERS: And, Brian, I mean, listening to you describe Portugal's approach, it sounds like it's very promising. So what makes it so controversial here in the United States? MANN: A lot of it comes down to the role of police. Beginning in 2001, Portugal decriminalized personal use amounts of drugs, and that made a huge difference for people living with addiction like Ronnie Duchandre, who I met on the street of Portugal's capital, Lisbon. RONNIE DUCHANDRE: Nice to meet you. MANN: Duchandre lives in a tent outside a church in Lisbon. He's addicted to alcohol and hashish and also sometimes smokes crack. DUCHANDRE: (Speaking Portuguese). MANN: Duchandre told me he fell into addiction gradually. "I believe, with some help, maybe with some education, I will come out of it," he said. Like most people who use drugs in Portugal, he's getting a lot of help - counseling and medical care, again, all of it free - which means Duchandre has a much lower risk of dying compared with drug users in the U.S. And he's also not afraid of being arrested. When I asked about police, Duchandre actually got excited. DUCHANDRE: (Speaking Portuguese). MANN: "The police are our friends," Duchandre said. "As long as I'm respectful, they're respectful and helpful." I spoke about this very different role for police in Portugal with Dr. Joao Goulao. He's Portugal's national drug czar. He said convincing law enforcement to shift from a get-tough approach to drugs to this focus on health care changed everything. JOAO GOULAO: Decriminalizing drug use is a good step - treatment, harm reduction measures, shelters. MANN: Now, it's important to say, Juana, that police do still play a big role in Portugal with street drug use. But instead of making arrests, cops are trained to counsel and nudge people in addiction toward treatment. SUMMERS: So police in Portugal - they're more like social workers. MANN: Yeah. Part of the time, that's right. And they regularly do get people in addiction to go to these addiction counseling sessions. Street cops in Portugal, of course, do more traditional work as well. They break up drug gangs. They work to protect neighborhoods from drug-related crime. And they've actually had a lot of success disrupting the kind of open-air drug markets that we've seen in some U.S. cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco. I spoke about this with Miguel Moniz. He's an anthropologist at the University of Lisbon who studies drug policy. MIGUEL MONIZ: There's an impression in the U.S. that if you decriminalize, then everybody - then it's a Wild West where everyone uses drugs. That hasn't been the case in Portugal. MANN: And this really is the major fear in the U.S. among politicians and other critics who oppose the Portugal model. They worry that if we decriminalize drugs and change the role of police in the way Portugal's done, we'll see a lot more rampant drug use, more drug-related crime. SUMMERS: But if Portugal's system is saving lives there without creating chaos, why couldn't or wouldn't that work here? MANN: Yeah. This is interesting. I mean, some experts believe the U.S. is just culturally different. In Portugal, people who use drugs still live in fairly tight-knit communities. They're surrounded by families. Keith Humphreys, the researcher at Stanford who we heard from a moment ago - he thinks people experiencing severe addiction here in the U.S. don't have those kinds of support networks. HUMPHREYS: The challenges we have here is they don't have a job that's putting any pressure on them. They don't have relationships. They're isolated. And if there's no law pressure, there is no pressure at all. MANN: So Humphreys thinks police in American cities will have to keep playing a more aggressive, forceful role, arresting drug users and using courts to get them off the streets and into treatment. SUMMERS: Brian, as I understand it, despite those concerns, there are places here in the United States where some parts of the Portugal model are being tried. Tell us about that. How's it going? MANN: Well, it's been rocky. A lot of cities across the U.S., especially in states like California, New York and Oregon, have slowly turned away from the drug war model, adopting some of Portugal's strategies. That means fewer drug arrests, more of a focus on harm reduction and physical and mental health care. Supporters hoped that would quickly reduce drug deaths. But so far, it really hasn't worked out that way. Drug deaths have continued to rise. One problem appears to be that, in some places, drugs have been decriminalized before really good treatment programs are widely available to pick up the slack. I spoke about this with Morgan Godvin. She's a drug policy expert and activist in Portland, Ore., where drugs were decriminalized in 2020. MORGAN GODVIN: We still suck at access to voluntary treatment - treatment on demand for everyone who wants it. I want our policymakers to see that decriminalization does not equal chaos. MANN: So a lot of addiction experts I talked to do believe creating a treatment system more like Portugal's would save a lot of lives in the U.S. and help get people off the street, but it would take time. And meanwhile, a lot of people, including a lot of voters and politicians, are impatient right now. They want public drug use cleaned up. In Oregon, there's a big movement to recriminalize drug use that looks like it might succeed. There's growing pressure in California to toughen drug laws again and boost arrests. Juana, no one I talked to believes we're going to make the kind of big pivot away from drug war-era policies that put Portugal on this very different path. SUMMERS: NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann. Brian, thank you. MANN: Thank you. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. 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Emily Feng Veteran Chinese AIDS campaigner Doctor Gao Yaojie, right, talks with students about AIDS prevention during a series of university lectures in Shanghai, Nov. 30 2006. Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images hide caption Veteran Chinese AIDS campaigner Doctor Gao Yaojie, right, talks with students about AIDS prevention during a series of university lectures in Shanghai, Nov. 30 2006. Gao Yaojie, a pioneering Chinese public health advocate, died on Sunday at the age of 95 in exile, in New York City. A trained gynecologist, Gao became well-known and beloved across China for her relentless activism in exposing a man-made AIDS crisis and for her educational work to remove the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS. In the 1990s, entire villages across central China had alarming numbers of people were testing positive for HIV. Many of these villages were in Henan province, where Gao had spent much of her childhood. Gao, who had by then retired, began investigating how the virus had entered China's countryside. She discovered that AIDS was spreading through ramshackle blood transfusion centers set up with official government backing. They enticed poor farmers to donate blood, from which the valuable plasma could be extracted. Poor hygienic practices like unsterilized and repeated use of needles, as well as pooling blood from multiple donors that would be reinjected back into people let HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — to spread with deadly efficiency. Gao was one of the first people to speak out publicly, allowing Chinese media outlets to eventually write about how the sale of blood plasma was spreading HIV/AIDS. "My driving thought is: how can I save more people from dying of this disease?" Gao told Chinese filmmakers. "We each only live one life." China's AIDS epidemic infected at least 1 million people starting in the late 1980s, by most accounts. (Gao herself has said that at least 10 million people were infected.) But there is no full accounting, because the Chinese state suppressed reporting about it. While Gao's work later earned her national and international acclaim from politicians including Hilary Clinton, her rising profile meant she also came under close state surveillance locally. In 2007, Gao was briefly put under house arrest, ringed in in her Henan home by about 50 policemen, in order to prevent her from traveling to the United States to pick up a prize recognizing her work in women's health. "I think they feel I got in the way of their political achievements and their official careers," she told NPR's Anthony Kuhn at the time. "Otherwise, why would they put me under house arrest? What law did I break to warrant mobilizing all these police?" Despite pressure from Henan provincial authorities to stop publicizing the AIDS crisis, she continued her work, using all the proceeds from her books and pamphlets to support AIDS families, especially children orphaned by the disease or the many suicides that it caused. "It is alright if you do not speak up on your own, as long as you do not tell lies," she told an online Chinese media group earlier this year. Her fearlessness and tenacity stemmed in part from a lifetime of hardship. As a child, her feet were bound, leaving her with a limp her entire life. During the height of the Cultural Revolution, a decade of political violence in the 1960s and 70s, Gao was purged and driven to the point of suicide. Restrictions on her movement began hindering in work in China, however, and in 2009, she abruptly fled to the US, after fearing she would be put under house arrest again. Many admirers continued to visit her apartment in West Harlem, including a group of young Chinese students who kept her company in the loneliness of exile. "Many Chinese regarded her as a hero, and when they came to New York, if they didn't know how to contact her ,they would ask me. I would ask them for an email written in Chinese and would forward it to her. So far as I know, she always wrote back to those people and welcomed them to come visit," remembers Andrew Nathan, a political science professor at Columbia University who handled much of Gao's affairs in New York. Nathan was at her home Sunday morning right after she had passed, waiting for the medical examiners, when two visitors, who had just shown up, only to learn of her death. One had brought a bouquet for Gao. She loved plants. Emily Feng reported this from Taipei, Taiwan. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Nina Totenberg The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a challenge to a deal to compensate victims of the opioid epidemic that shield the Sackler family from lawsuits. Samuel Corum/AFP via Getty Images hide caption The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a challenge to a deal to compensate victims of the opioid epidemic that shield the Sackler family from lawsuits. The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court sent mixed signals Monday as they struggled to decide whether to give a thumbs up or thumbs down to the multi-billion dollar Purdue Pharma bankruptcy deal--a deal meant to compensate victims of the highly addictive pain killer OxyContin. Basically, the issue before the court amounts to a battle between money and principle. On the money side is a bankruptcy deal approved by two lower courts that would provide $8 billion to state and local governments in dealing with the consequences of opioid addiction, as well as providing individual compensation to victims. Funding most of that settlement would be the Sackler family, who owned and ran Purdue Pharma, and agreed to pay $6 billion into the compensation pot. On the principle side are a relatively small number of victims, and the U.S. Trustee, who oversees bankruptcies. They object to the deal because it shields the Sacklers from any further lawsuits, and leaves the family with more than half their wealth, even though they were intimately involved in the aggressive and false marketing of OxyContin. Representing the bankruptcy trustee and other objectors, Deputy Solicitor General Curtis Gannon said the Sacklers withdrew large amounts of their money from Purdue before the bankruptcy, and he argued that federal law does not authorize bankruptcy judges to approve a release from liability for third parties like the Sacklers. That prompted this question from Justice Elena Kagan: "Your position rests on a lot of sort of highfalutin principles of bankruptcy law," she observed, but, she added, "It seems as though the federal government is standing in the way of...a huge huge majority of claimants who have decided that if this provision goes under, they're going to end up with nothing." Deputy Solicitor General Gannon replied that there is a reason the Sacklers first offered $4 billion, then upped the ante to $6 billion, and he seemed to suggest a yet better deal is possible if the court vetoes the current deal. Justice Samuel Alito sounded dubious. "As I understand it," Alito said, "the bankruptcy court, the creditors, Purdue and just about everybody else in this litigation thinks that the Sacklers' funds in spendthrift trusts oversees are unreachable." That would mean legal costs would eat up most, if not all, of what Sackler money would be recovered. Justice Brett Kavanaugh followed up, noting that bankruptcy courts have been approving plans like this for 30 years. "The opioid victims and their families overwhelmingly approve this plan because they think it will ensure prompt payment," he said. But Gregory Garre, representing Purdue Pharma, tried to put the kibosh on that argument. If the court were to block the bankruptcy deal, he said, "billions of dollars that the plan allocates for opioid abatement and compensation will evaporate. Creditors and victims will be left with nothing and lives literally will be lost." But Kagan raised a verbal eyebrow at that assertion. "I thought that one of the government's stronger arguments is this idea that there is a fundamental bargain in bankruptcy law, which is, you get a discharge when you put all your assets on the table to be divided up by the creditors. And I think everybody thinks that the Sacklers didn't come anywhere close to doing that," she said. Garre replied that the point of bankruptcy isn't to make life "as difficult as possible" for the Sacklers. It's to maximize compensation and to fairly and equitably distribute the money to the victims. That point was underlined by lawyer Pratik Shah, representing the victims. "Every one of the creditor constituencies in this case, comprising individual victims and public entities harmed by Purdue, overwhelmingly support the plan," Shah said. "Forget a better deal," he told the justices. "Whatever is available from the Sacklers, whether that's $3 billion, $5 billion, $6 billion, or $10 billion, there are about $40 trillion in estimated claims. And as soon as one plaintiff is successful, that wipes out the recovery for every other victim," Shah warned. That's why 97% of the victims agreed to release the Sacklers from liability, he said. Chief Justice John Roberts interjected to note that there are different classes of victims in the case, and some of them want to go forward with holding the Sacklers accountable. Shah replied that in all classes of victims, 96% want to go forward with the plan. "Currently, there is only one objector standing with the Trustee in this case," he added. At the end of the day, it was unclear where the majority of the court is going, and whether the bankruptcy plan will survive. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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From By  Scott Maucione Karli (left) and Elmo (right) appear in Season 51 of Sesame Street. In separate videos and stories available for free online, Karli, Elmo and supportive adult characters discuss how Karli's mother is in recovery for an unspecified addiction. Sesame Workshop hide caption Karli (left) and Elmo (right) appear in Season 51 of Sesame Street. In separate videos and stories available for free online, Karli, Elmo and supportive adult characters discuss how Karli's mother is in recovery for an unspecified addiction. Tevis Simon grew up in West Baltimore back in the 1980s, a neighborhood that lacked attention from the city and investment from the government. From day to day, she was never sure what version of her mother she'd encounter. "I knew that if my mom had her drugs, that she was fun, mommy. And if she didn't, then she was mean mommy," Simon says. This story was produced in partnership with KFF Health News. Simon's mother was addicted to opioids and her issues with the drug led to abuse and neglect, she says. Millions of children struggle with what Simon went through. More than 4% of children in the United States live in a household with a parent who misuses opioids, according to estimates from the Department of Health and Human Services. In this online video from the Sesame Workshop, Elmo's dad explains the word "addiction" in an age-appropriate way, as they discuss why Karli's mom is in treatment. Many of those children feel confused and anxious about what their parents are going through. Now Sesame Workshop, the educational nonprofit behind one of the world's most famous children's shows, is trying to give young kids a better understanding of addiction in families. The intention is to build their emotional resilience in a way that can help them in the moment, and later in life. "The experience of having a parent with an opioid use disorder is traumatic for children," says Ruth Paris, an associate professor at the BU School of Social Work, who specializes in early childhood trauma. For Simon, living with a parent with addiction led to major depressive disorder, anxiety and agoraphobia. "It always had me in a state of flux," she says. "Always kind of wondering, waiting, fearful of what would happen next. That evolved to be anxiety. I remember being a little girl, I would pick the sides of my fingernails and the cuticles until they bled, I was so scared. I very rarely spoke." Paris says early intervention can help reduce some of those effects of addiction on children. "Being able to address trauma in early childhood is imperative, and can make a difference in that child's growth and development in terms of cognitive development, emotional development and social development," Paris says. A few years ago, Sesame Workshop, the umbrella organization for the show Sesame Street, began developing some of the first materials specifically created for children aged 1 to 6 whose parents may use drugs or in recovery. Now, a recent grant from the Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts will enable Sesame Workshop to produce more videos, stories and resources focused on addiction, treatment, and healing. Some of the free materials are available online, and feature famous Muppets like Karli and Elmo, and Chris, one of the shopkeepers on Sesame Street. In a shoft Sesame Workshop video called "Lending a Hand," the Muppet Karli explains to Elmo that her mom attends recover meetings every to stay healthy: "You see, well, my mom needs help taking care of herself. So she talks to people with the same problem." Parents or caregivers can read or talk about the material with children, and social workers and therapists can use these tools during therapy sessions to guide kids through the tough emotions of having a parent or caregiver struggling with addiction. The materials include coloring books, short videos and storybooks about handling emotions around addiction and answering simple questions like why parents need to attend recovery meetings every day. Karli, a Muppet whose mother is going through treatment for addiction, personifies some of the challenges kids face. In one video, Elmo asks his father why his friend Karli's mom is sick. His father explains some of the basics of recovery: "Addiction makes people feel like they need a grown-up drink like alcohol, or another kind of drug, to feel okay. That can make a person act strange in ways they can't control." One coloring book helps children articulate and address their own feelings about needs around addiction by reminding children to remember the seven C's: "I didn't Cause the problem. I cannot Control it. I cannot Cure it. BUT... I can help take Care of myself by Communicating my feelings, making healthy Choices, and Celebrating myself." There are few trusted materials for explaining to young children the issues surrounding addiction, despite their proximity to it, says Jeanette Betancourt, the senior vice president for U.S. social impact at Sesame Workshop. "The resources that are out there now tend to focus more on older youth and on adults," she says. "Because there's this myth that with young children they don't understand or they may not be aware." This isn't the first time Sesame Workshop has tackled hard issues. In the early 1980s, the actor who played Mr. Hooper died and the show focused on death and grief. Sesame Workshop has an online catalog of resources to help children learn about and process experiences like divorce, bullying, community violence or a parent going on military deployment. There are developmentally appropriate materials addressing diagnoses such as autism, HIV, asthma and COVID-19. Paris explains that acknowledging young children's emotions and allowing them to express themselves, especially around a complex addiction, are extremely important in building resilience. "The material enables a young child to recognize that they can have a host of different feelings. I think Sesame Workshop focuses a lot on the sadness around the separation from the parent who might be in a treatment setting, and need to separate from them," Paris says. "For the child, those simple messages — being allowed to have your feelings, it's not your fault — I think are really important," Paris adds. In this Sesame Workshop video, Karli and Elmo play and also talk about some feelings Karli has about her mother's treatment. Karlie tells Elmo that her mom reassured her that her "grown-up problem" wasn't Karli's fault. Tevis Simon, whose mother struggled with addiction when she was a child, says Sesame Workshop's materials would have brought welcome stability to the chaotic world she grew up in. "If there were a Muppet at the time that was talking about parents going through addiction, and how that makes their children feel, that they feel alone and scared and some children are abused verbally and physically. It would have helped me not go into a downward spiral," Simon says. As the new material around addiction is produced, Sesame Workshop will make it available online as part of its "How to Talk to Kids about Tough Topics" resource library. This story comes from NPR's health reporting partnership with WYPR and KFF Health News. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Advertisement <iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/hereandnow/2023/11/16/opioid-epidemic-teenagers"></iframe> Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes talks with Taliah and Zara Lyons, two sisters who are educating their peers about drug safety using harm reduction techniques. They run multiple projects as a part of their leadership of Youth4Youth Canada. We learned about their work from our friends at the Solutions Journalism Network and Native News Online. This segment aired on November 16, 2023. Advertisement

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Advertisement <iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/hereandnow/2023/11/03/life-expectancy-chronic-illness"></iframe> Life expectancy is a good measure of the health and success of a country, and in the United States, life expectancy is falling. After decades of progress improving life spans, we've seen a reversal. Many people are dying early of chronic illnesses like diabetes, obesity, hypertension and fatty liver disease. We talk about the Washington Post's series "Dying Early: America's Life Expectancy Crisis" with Akilah Johnson, one of the reporters who contributed to it. This segment aired on November 3, 2023. Advertisement

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Making friends in adulthood can be difficult — sometimes the fear of rejection holds people back. So how do you make friends? A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: The United States is experiencing an epidemic of loneliness. A report from the U.S. surgeon general says about half of adults claim they've experienced loneliness.MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: So for some advice on how to make friends, we turn to some young experts.LILIANA: I make friends by sitting next to them at lunch or in a class.COLIN: It's a little hard and a little easy. You could play with them or they can play with you, so you should ask them nicely.OWEN: Try to be nice because usually people don't want to be your friends if you're mean to them.MARTÍNEZ: Aw. That's Liliana Beckwith, Colin Seduski and Liliana's brother, Owen Beckwith. The fear of rejection sometimes holds people back from making friends.MARISA FRANCO: When you assume people like you, you are friendlier, you are warmer, you're more open, you take more initiative.MARTIN: That is University of Maryland psychologist Marisa Franco. She's the author of "Platonic: How The Science Of Attachment Can Help You Make And Keep Friends." And she says paying attention to people can help you connect with them.FRANCO: If you're just, like, present and you're just, like, interested in people, like, that's enough. You don't have to charm people.MARTIN: Having someone to confide in can also affect the way your body deals with stressful situations. Research shows strong social connections can reduce the risk of heart disease, dementia and improve your overall well-being.MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, just ask 4-year-old Edith Wiencek.EDITH: When I'm with my friends, it makes me feel happy.MARTIN: OK, so A...MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).MARTIN: You don't have any trouble making friends, am I right?MARTÍNEZ: Oh, no, I do because I don't want any new friends.MARTIN: (Laughter).MARTÍNEZ: Look, I describe myself as friendly, not social. So in order to make new friends, you kind of have to be social. But since I don't want to do that...MARTIN: So can I be your friend?MARTÍNEZ: I thought we were.(LAUGHTER)MARTIN: I was just checking.MARTÍNEZ: What do you - I have to audition now?MARTIN: I was just checking. I was just making sure...MARTÍNEZ: Aw, have to go through a whole process.MARTIN: ...Because, you know, we're all - we're both nice. A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: The United States is experiencing an epidemic of loneliness. A report from the U.S. surgeon general says about half of adults claim they've experienced loneliness. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: So for some advice on how to make friends, we turn to some young experts. LILIANA: I make friends by sitting next to them at lunch or in a class. COLIN: It's a little hard and a little easy. You could play with them or they can play with you, so you should ask them nicely. OWEN: Try to be nice because usually people don't want to be your friends if you're mean to them. MARTÍNEZ: Aw. That's Liliana Beckwith, Colin Seduski and Liliana's brother, Owen Beckwith. The fear of rejection sometimes holds people back from making friends. MARISA FRANCO: When you assume people like you, you are friendlier, you are warmer, you're more open, you take more initiative. MARTIN: That is University of Maryland psychologist Marisa Franco. She's the author of "Platonic: How The Science Of Attachment Can Help You Make And Keep Friends." And she says paying attention to people can help you connect with them. FRANCO: If you're just, like, present and you're just, like, interested in people, like, that's enough. You don't have to charm people. MARTIN: Having someone to confide in can also affect the way your body deals with stressful situations. Research shows strong social connections can reduce the risk of heart disease, dementia and improve your overall well-being. MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, just ask 4-year-old Edith Wiencek. EDITH: When I'm with my friends, it makes me feel happy. MARTIN: OK, so A... MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter). MARTIN: You don't have any trouble making friends, am I right? MARTÍNEZ: Oh, no, I do because I don't want any new friends. MARTIN: (Laughter). MARTÍNEZ: Look, I describe myself as friendly, not social. So in order to make new friends, you kind of have to be social. But since I don't want to do that... MARTIN: So can I be your friend? MARTÍNEZ: I thought we were. (LAUGHTER) MARTIN: I was just checking. MARTÍNEZ: What do you - I have to audition now? MARTIN: I was just checking. I was just making sure... MARTÍNEZ: Aw, have to go through a whole process. MARTIN: ...Because, you know, we're all - we're both nice. Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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From By  Jackie Fortier ,  Nicole Leonard Rosalind Pichardo, who founded Operation Save Our City in Philadelphia, sprays a container of Narcan during a demonstration Sept. 8 at the Health and Human Services Humphrey Building in Washington, DC. Health officials held the event to mark the availability, without a prescription, of the opioid overdose-reversal drug. AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein hide caption Rosalind Pichardo, who founded Operation Save Our City in Philadelphia, sprays a container of Narcan during a demonstration Sept. 8 at the Health and Human Services Humphrey Building in Washington, DC. Health officials held the event to mark the availability, without a prescription, of the opioid overdose-reversal drug. Earlier this month, drug stores and pharmacies nationwide began stocking and selling the country's first over-the-counter version of naloxone, a medication that can stop a potentially fatal overdose from opioids. It's sold as a nasal spray under the brand name Narcan. This story was produced in partnership with KFF Health News. Coming off a year with a record number of drug overdose deaths in the United States — nearly 110,000 in 2022, according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics – community health workers and addiction medicine experts were hopeful that the arrival of Narcan on retail shelves might make it easier for people to get the medication. The urgent and ultimate goal is to prevent more fatal overdoses. But it's unclear if the move will actually expand access to Narcan. Experts worry that its retail price, sporadic availability on store shelves, or general consumer confusion about potentially having to ask a pharmacist to retrieve it will mean that fewer people than expected will purchase Narcan and actually have it at the ready when an overdose occurs. That means that more education and outreach will be needed to get this lifesaving medication into more hands. Those already engaged in the opioid epidemic – community health workers and nonprofits focused on harm reduction – will have to stay intensely involved. Over-the-counter Narcan will be an additional tool, alongside prescription and free versions of the drug. "It's not by any means a game changer. I don't think it's a step in the wrong direction. I just think it's a tiny, tiny baby step that does not deserve a round of applause," says Shoshana Aronowitz, a family nurse practitioner and assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Nursing in Philadelphia. "We should not be under any illusion that this is going to meaningfully change things for a lot of people," she says. "But we need to be moving in this direction, we just need to be doing it faster and with an understanding that this is just way overdue." The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved over-the-counter marketing and sales of Narcan in March. It's manufactured by Emergent BioSolutions, and started arriving in stores in early September, with a suggested retail price of $44.99 for a two-dose package. As an over-the-counter product, Narcan should ideally appear on store shelves in the same way as ibuprofen and cough medication. But at several drugstore locations in Philadelphia, "over-the-counter" means it is stocked and sold from behind the pharmacy counter. That requires people to wait in line and ask a pharmacist to buy Narcan. "Having to go talk to the pharmacist who may or may not know you, it's not comfortable for people and that's a barrier that this is supposed to eliminate," Aronowitz says. "It's counterintuitive. It needs to just be on the shelf and someone can take it." Keeping Narcan behind the counter will especially deter people who use drugs, says Dr. Lewis Nelson, chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine and director of the Division of Medical Toxicology at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. "For those who don't have substance use concerns, they might go in and just ask for the product and not be concerned about what the other person's thinking," he says. "But that's a mental state that's very hard for most of us to put ourselves into if we don't live the life of somebody with the stigma and the marginalization that is so associated with substance use." Another potential barrier is related to affordability. Although the suggested price for a two-dose pack is $44.99, there's nothing that stops individual pharmacies and other retailers from charging more. At least one drugstore in Philadelphia was selling it from behind the pharmacy counter for $72 per box. "The higher the price, the fewer people who are going to splurge to have this with them in case somebody else needs it," Nelson says. That's especially true for people with low incomes who are facing other daily financial challenges, Aronowitz says. Even $44.99 may be too steep for many consumers. "That's a lot of money to be spending on something if you need food today, if you have a headache and need ibuprofen today," she says. "You think you'll probably need naloxone, but it's not a guarantee that you'll need today, so why spend the money." For some people, generic brands of naloxone, already available at many pharmacies, could be a more affordable option than brand-name Narcan. But generic naloxone still requires a prescription, and may involve significant out-of-pocket costs, particularly for uninsured customers. To deal with the prescription requirement, most states have instituted a standing order for naloxone, which authorizes pharmacists to dispense naloxone immediately to someone, even when they don't have a doctor's prescription. Many private health insurers — and public programs like Medicaid and Medicare — cover the cost of these prescription sales. State officials in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware confirmed to NPR that their Medicaid programs, which offer health insurance to people with low incomes, will cover the cost of the new Narcan spray as long as a pharmacist puts the order through as a prescription. In California, a bill is headed to Governor Gavin Newsom's desk that would require health insurers - both public and private - to cover most of the cost of naloxone, and other FDA-approved opioid-overdose reversal drugs, in the nation's most populous state. The bill allows insurance plans to charge a maximum co-pay of $10 per package, and would sunset in five years. Aronowitz predicts that if cost deters people from buying over-the-counter Narcan, it will fall upon nonprofit organizations and harm reduction programs, which already distribute naloxone for free, to continue efforts to distribute it to a larger population of people. In Los Angeles County, health officials have launched a unique push to get Narcan into the hands of an overlooked demographic when it comes to the overdose epidemic — Latino immigrants. The rate of fentanyl deaths among Latinos in L.A. County jumped by 721% in just seven years, according to the county Department of Public Health. In 2016, 25 Latinos died of fentanyl overdoses. By 2021, 550 Latinos had died. It's unknown how many of those people were immigrants, because country of origin isn't a required data point in overdose reported data. Still, county health officials are proactively reaching out to immigrant communities with their harm reduction efforts. While Mexico doesn't have an opioid use epidemic as severe and deadly as the one in the U.S., overdoses in that country are increasing — particularly in border communities — and there's a growing need for Narcan, the nasal spray that reverses opioid overdoses. In Los Angeles, Martha Hernandez, a county community health worker, makes frequent visits to local consulates for Spanish-speaking nations, where she gives short, sharp demonstrations tailored to her audience, instructing them on how to effectively use Narcan. "I go to five Latin consulates," Hernandez explained during a recent visit to the city's Mexican consulate near MacArthur Park. "I use myself as an example. A lot of us go to our hometown, Tijuana is the closest one, and we go and get medication, especially pain killers. [I tell them] 'a lot of them have fentanyl in the medications' and you'll see their wide open eyes, like 'Woah, that is true.'" Narcan is highly restricted in Mexico, so immigrants are unlikely to know much about it. But in the U.S., Narcan's new availability without a prescription, along with the ongoing surge in overdoses, made consulates a new priority for enhanced outreach and training. One common misconception Hernandez runs into surrounds Narcan's packaging, which says nasal spray in large letters on the box. "People do mistake the fact that it's nasal [spray], they think it's for allergies," she says. "That's where you see the necessity of educating our community because a lot of people will say 'oh I need it, I have allergies." The main room of the Mexican consulate in L.A. feels like the lobby of a DMV, with long waits amid rows of hard plastic chairs. On a recent morning, about 30 people sat waiting for their new Mexican passports or ID cards. This is the captive audience Hernandez takes advantage of, walking in front of the assembled people, holding brightly colored public health brochures above her head. "Simple words, colorful brochures, nice and easy. The way you approach them is the key to getting your message across," she says. Today, she tells the captive audience, they'll learn how to save someone from dying of an opioid overdose. Hernandez tells them Narcan is not a substitute for medical care, but it can quickly prevent an overdose from becoming fatal. And it's so easy to use that the training can take as little as 10 minutes. It's not always clear if someone is experiencing an overdose, but Hernandez tells the group that they should still call 911 and administer Narcan. "I tell them, if I saw my mom on the floor I would administer Narcan," Hernandez says. "Why? Because my mom will go to her sister's house and say 'my neck or my knee hurts' and her sister will pop out a pain medicine [that she has.] A lot of us, being Latinos, will pop it into our mouth. How do I know what she put in her mouth?" Fake prescription pills are partially fueling the country's opioid crisis, especially in western states. The share of overdose deaths involving counterfeit pills more than doubled between 2019 and 2021, and the percentage more than tripled in western states, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report found those who died from overdoses with evidence of counterfeit pill use, compared to those without it, were more often younger, Hispanic or Latino and had misused prescription drugs in the past. Jose Magaña Lozano, 67, works in cement construction in L.A. and has lived in the U.S. for 30 years. "I've only seen opioid overdoses on TV," he says. "Hopefully I never have to witness an overdose happen, but if in case I do see it happen, at least you know what to do, and at the very least you can help a little." But for younger generations who went to high school in the U.S., and who grew up in the midst of the raging opioid epidemic, the problem is all too familiar. "I've actually learned it [Narcan] in high school because you'd be surprised, lots of people were doing drugs and overdosing," says Luis Armas Ramirez. "Latinos, we don't really take it seriously like that, especially because it's something very private," he says. Armas was excited to receive a free box of Narcan while waiting for his travel documents. "[Narcan] is like, crazy expensive. I believe that things happen for a reason, so if I'm seeing it [Narcan] now, God's timing is never wrong, I may see an overdose next week, you never know," he says. Hernandez gave three demonstrations at the Mexican consulate, and gave out a total of 45 boxes of Narcan. The following day, she headed over to the Guatemalan consulate to teach more immigrants about the increased danger of opioid overdoses in America, and how they might help. This story comes from NPR's health reporting partnership with WHYY, LAist and KFF Health News. Gillian Moran-Pérez contributed Spanish translation assistance to this story. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Advertisement <iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/hereandnow/2023/09/18/the-autumn-ghost-polio"></iframe> When polio first broke out in the early 1900s, modern medicine couldn’t keep up. At the start, most patients didn’t make it home from the hospital. The poliovirus often left patients paralyzed and with trouble breathing, and the only option for treatment was the iron lung, which sucked air into the lungs. “The iron lung, which came in in 1928, was really revolutionary,” says critical care physician Dr. Hannah Wunsch. “In fact, it was the first time you had a machine that could support people's breathing.” Though revolutionary, it still had a host of setbacks. Patients often felt trapped in a huge metal casket, a major downside to the iron lung. Plus, doctors and nurses had trouble treating patients because they had to stay encapsulated in the machine to create negative pressure that would suck air into the lungs.  Additionally, for patients with bulbar polio, the mortality rate still hovered around 90% even when using the iron lung. To address these shortcomings, Dr. Bjørn Aage Ibsen started working to create a positive pressure ventilator in 1953. The technology would effectively push air into the lungs. And, the technology was much smaller and less invasive than the iron lung. The mortality rate of the disease reduced from 90% to 20%. “[Positive pressure] was used in the operating room by anesthesiologists when they gave someone anesthesia and paralyzed them for surgery,” Wunsch says. “For short periods of time, they would blow air into the lungs to keep someone breathing.” Ventilator technology has been expanded since, but it remains similar to this day. And critical care, like that provided to polio patients, has become a focal point of medicine amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Wunsch wrote the book “The Autumn Ghost: How the Battle Against a Polio Epidemic Revolutionized Modern Medical Care” detailing the creation of the ventilator and other aspects of critical care. “Critical care medicine is something that really came to the forefront of people's attention in COVID-19, but it's always there in the background,” Wunsch says. “It's really the care we provide for the sickest patients in the hospital at any given time.” By Hannah Wunsch Vivi Ebert was just twelve years old. She was going to die. Near the end of August, Vivi came home from school saying she had a head-ache and went to bed. The next day she complained that she couldn’t move her arms and legs well. On Tuesday, August 26, she had a fever, headache, stiff neck, and some paralysis: the telltale signs of polio. Her mother called an ambulance and Vivi was brought to the hospital; she already had weakness in one arm, but much more concerning, she also had difficulty breathing. Since early July, the hospital had admitted many patients just like Vivi, and almost all of them had died. As her symptoms worsened, the doctors and nurses knew she likely had only a few more hours, or days at most, to live. The polio epidemic that year in Copenhagen had begun with a trickle of cases in July. By the end of the summer the disease was roaring through Denmark’s capital and outlying regions. It was far worse than in previous years, with more cases of paralysis and difficulty breathing than anyone had ever seen. There were daily news bulletins on the radio announcing the latest areas with outbreaks. Ambulances kept pulling up at the hospital, hour after hour, day after day. By late August, there were fifty admissions a day, all with severe polio. The doctors and nurses would have focused on one key question: Could the patient take a breath? For someone who was struggling to breathe, there was little that could be done except to try to keep them comfortable. Henry Cai Alexander Lassen, the chief of the Blegdam, the only infectious disease hospital in the city, was a physician and an expert on polio. He had cared for hundreds of patients with the illness. But this strain of the virus seemed to be causing more cases than usual, and was viciously deadly. By the time Vivi showed up, he and his team had already lost dozens of patients, many of them infants and children. Vivi was about to be next. The previous decades had been full of major medical advances; antibiotics allowed for treatment of bacterial infections, the discovery of insulin meant that a diagnosis of diabetes was no longer a death sentence, and X-rays provided a way to “see” inside the body. New vaccines had even been developed for infectious diseases such as diphtheria and influenza. But in 1952 there was still little anyone could offer as treatment for patients with polio, and there was also no vaccine for prevention. Modern medicine was failing and polio was winning. That was about to change. Adapted with permission of the publisher from the book "The Autumn Ghost: How the Battle Against a Polio Epidemic Revolutionized Modern Medical Care," written by Hannah Wunsch and published by Greystone Books in May 2023. Julia Corcoran produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Peter O'Dowd. Grace Griffin adapted it for the web. This segment aired on September 18, 2023. Scott Tong Co-Host, Here & NowScott Tong joined Here & Now as a co-host in July 2021 after spending 16 years at Marketplace as Shanghai bureau chief and senior correspondent. More… Julia Corcoran Producer, Here & NowJulia Corcoran is an associate producer for Here & Now. More… Advertisement

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Loneliness is a national epidemic, according to the U.S. surgeon general. A project in Massachusetts is trying to combat the problem by helping people make friends. SCOTT DETROW, HOST: Loneliness and social isolation have major implications for our health. Health care providers and insurers are starting to pay more attention to these risks. And in Massachusetts, there is a program to help people make friends. Priyanka Dayal McCluskey of member station WBUR has more.(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)PRIYANKA DAYAL MCCLUSKEY, BYLINE: The pool is a favorite hangout spot for Jason Silverman and his friend Melissa Mills. They sip slushies, and Silverman climbs the stairs to the water slide.MELISSA MILLS: All right.DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: He lands with a big splash.MILLS: You're fast on that slide.DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: Silverman has Down syndrome, and talking is sometimes difficult. But he has ways of communicating. He smiles, sighs, and sometimes leads Mills by the arm. They meet once a month and go to the gym in Framingham, Mass.(SOUNDBITE OF BEEPING)DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: They always start with a treadmill or bike.MILLS: You're doing it. One minute. One minute and a half left.DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: Then Mills helps Silverman order lunch at a cafe.JASON SILVERMAN: Cheeseburger.MILLS: Cheeseburger.UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Cheeseburger?MILLS: Yes.UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: OK.DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: This relationship started through a program called the Friendship Project. Its goal is to reduce loneliness and social isolation, especially for people with disabilities and mental health conditions who are more likely to feel lonely. And Mills says they hit it off right away.MILLS: And we laugh and don't worry about anything when we're together. There's no stress. There's no pressure. We're just here to hang out.DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: For Silverman, the outings are a break from the mornings he spends watching TV alone. His mom, Stephanie Lynch, says he seems happier.STEPHANIE LYNCH: And it's just human. People need companionship. They need to feel part of something, and I think he really feels part of something when he goes to the gym.DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: The Friendship Project is run by a human services agency called Advocates. Jeff Keilson is senior vice president.JEFF KEILSON: If there's ways that we could really support people by connecting them with others, then we absolutely should do that.DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: There are health and financial imperatives, too. A growing body of research shows when people are lonely, they're at higher risk of becoming sick with illnesses like heart disease, stroke and dementia. And Keilson says it's too early for data, but he hopes the program will reduce some hospital visits.KEILSON: A lot of people, particularly with mental health conditions, use emergency rooms just to connect with people.DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: Advocates is working with some health insurers to expand the initiative beyond people with disabilities and mental health conditions. A recent report from the U.S. surgeon general underscores the urgency of this work. It says loneliness is a national epidemic and raises the risk of premature death as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.DANIEL COX: Our social networks seem to be shrinking.DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: Daniel Cox is senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His research finds Americans have fewer close friends than they used to. Cox says he's heartened to see more health care leaders focus on friendship.COX: If the goal is to help people live longer, healthier lives, this is a pretty obvious intervention.DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: Friendship can take different forms. For Michelle Somerville and Ida Rodriguez, it's a phone call every Tuesday. Here they are on one recent call.IDA RODRIGUEZ: I can go anywhere and have this conversation with you. Right now, I'm parked at Taco Bell.MICHELLE SOMERVILLE: (Laughter) You're at Taco Bell? Oh, my goodness. I like the burrito bowl.DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: The pair met through Commonwealth Care Alliance, a Boston-based health insurer for seniors and people with significant medical needs. Rodriguez says her social life slowed down as she got older. The weekly check-ins remind her she has a friend. And Somerville says she likes hearing about the books Rodriguez is reading.SOMERVILLE: I want someone to read to me, but I don't want to read myself. So it was a match made in heaven.DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: The women have never met in person, but they look forward to these weekly chats, and their connection could be good for their health, too.For NPR News, I'm Priyanka Dayal McCluskey in Boston.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) SCOTT DETROW, HOST: Loneliness and social isolation have major implications for our health. Health care providers and insurers are starting to pay more attention to these risks. And in Massachusetts, there is a program to help people make friends. Priyanka Dayal McCluskey of member station WBUR has more. (SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING) PRIYANKA DAYAL MCCLUSKEY, BYLINE: The pool is a favorite hangout spot for Jason Silverman and his friend Melissa Mills. They sip slushies, and Silverman climbs the stairs to the water slide. MELISSA MILLS: All right. DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: He lands with a big splash. MILLS: You're fast on that slide. DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: Silverman has Down syndrome, and talking is sometimes difficult. But he has ways of communicating. He smiles, sighs, and sometimes leads Mills by the arm. They meet once a month and go to the gym in Framingham, Mass. (SOUNDBITE OF BEEPING) DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: They always start with a treadmill or bike. MILLS: You're doing it. One minute. One minute and a half left. DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: Then Mills helps Silverman order lunch at a cafe. JASON SILVERMAN: Cheeseburger. MILLS: Cheeseburger. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Cheeseburger? MILLS: Yes. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: OK. DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: This relationship started through a program called the Friendship Project. Its goal is to reduce loneliness and social isolation, especially for people with disabilities and mental health conditions who are more likely to feel lonely. And Mills says they hit it off right away. MILLS: And we laugh and don't worry about anything when we're together. There's no stress. There's no pressure. We're just here to hang out. DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: For Silverman, the outings are a break from the mornings he spends watching TV alone. His mom, Stephanie Lynch, says he seems happier. STEPHANIE LYNCH: And it's just human. People need companionship. They need to feel part of something, and I think he really feels part of something when he goes to the gym. DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: The Friendship Project is run by a human services agency called Advocates. Jeff Keilson is senior vice president. JEFF KEILSON: If there's ways that we could really support people by connecting them with others, then we absolutely should do that. DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: There are health and financial imperatives, too. A growing body of research shows when people are lonely, they're at higher risk of becoming sick with illnesses like heart disease, stroke and dementia. And Keilson says it's too early for data, but he hopes the program will reduce some hospital visits. KEILSON: A lot of people, particularly with mental health conditions, use emergency rooms just to connect with people. DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: Advocates is working with some health insurers to expand the initiative beyond people with disabilities and mental health conditions. A recent report from the U.S. surgeon general underscores the urgency of this work. It says loneliness is a national epidemic and raises the risk of premature death as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. DANIEL COX: Our social networks seem to be shrinking. DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: Daniel Cox is senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His research finds Americans have fewer close friends than they used to. Cox says he's heartened to see more health care leaders focus on friendship. COX: If the goal is to help people live longer, healthier lives, this is a pretty obvious intervention. DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: Friendship can take different forms. For Michelle Somerville and Ida Rodriguez, it's a phone call every Tuesday. Here they are on one recent call. IDA RODRIGUEZ: I can go anywhere and have this conversation with you. Right now, I'm parked at Taco Bell. MICHELLE SOMERVILLE: (Laughter) You're at Taco Bell? Oh, my goodness. I like the burrito bowl. DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: The pair met through Commonwealth Care Alliance, a Boston-based health insurer for seniors and people with significant medical needs. Rodriguez says her social life slowed down as she got older. The weekly check-ins remind her she has a friend. And Somerville says she likes hearing about the books Rodriguez is reading. SOMERVILLE: I want someone to read to me, but I don't want to read myself. So it was a match made in heaven. DAYAL MCCLUSKEY: The women have never met in person, but they look forward to these weekly chats, and their connection could be good for their health, too. For NPR News, I'm Priyanka Dayal McCluskey in Boston. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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From By  Priyanka Dayal McCluskey Jason Silverman, on the exercise bike, and his friend Melissa Mills go to the gym together when they hang out. The pair are part of the Friendship Project in Framingham, Massachusetts. Priyanka Dayal McCluskey/WBUR hide caption Jason Silverman, on the exercise bike, and his friend Melissa Mills go to the gym together when they hang out. The pair are part of the Friendship Project in Framingham, Massachusetts. On a typical morning, Jason Silverman lounges at home in his bed for hours, with the TV on and the volume turned up. Sometimes, this daily regimen can get lonely. So he looks forward to the days his friend, Melissa Mills, picks him up and takes him to a gym in Framingham, Massachusetts, where they exercise together. Silverman, 38, has Down syndrome. Talking is difficult for him, but he communicates by smiling, sighing and leading Mills by the arm. She's become familiar with his routine: Usually they hit the treadmill first, then bike a bit before a lunch break and finally, a swim in the pool. "We laugh and don't worry about anything when we're together," says Mills, 43. "There's no stress; there's no pressure. We're just here to hang out." This connection began in a somewhat unusual way. Mills, who works in human resources for the state police, volunteers with a small but growing initiative called the Friendship Project. The program is designed to reduce social isolation — particularly for people with disabilities or mental health conditions — by helping them build relationships with others. "People are so isolated and so lonely, and that has such a negative impact on their quality of life," says Jeff Keilson, senior vice president of strategic planning at Advocates, the Framingham-based human services agency that runs the Friendship Project. "If there's ways that we could support people by connecting them with others, then we absolutely should do that." This work is rooted in more than a moral imperative to help people. A growing body of research shows loneliness has profound implications for physical and mental health. People who are socially disconnected have a 29% higher risk of heart disease, a 32% greater risk of stroke and a 50% increased risk of dementia for older adults. Loneliness can increase the risk of premature death as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, according to a recent advisory from the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's office. The country is contending with an "epidemic of loneliness," according to that report — and the medicine to treat the problem is social connection. The Friendship Project launched during the COVID pandemic and was founded on the premise that increasing social connection could improve people's lives and even reduce hospital visits. It's too early for data to show whether the latter is happening. Keilson says people sometimes end up at the hospital because they're lonely. "By addressing isolation, we could actually have an impact on people's use of emergency rooms," he says. People with disabilities are among the populations more likely to experience loneliness, but the problem is pervasive. About half of American adults reported feeling lonely in recent years — and that was before the pandemic triggered shutdowns and safety measures that further isolated people, according to the surgeon general's report. A socially distanced outdoor lunch in March 2020. Even before the pandemic, isolation emerged as a growing threat to health. OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images hide caption A socially distanced outdoor lunch in March 2020. Even before the pandemic, isolation emerged as a growing threat to health. Americans also have fewer close friends than they used to, says Daniel Cox, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who studies friendship. And they talk to their friends less often. Cox says he's heartened to see more health care leaders focus on the importance of friendship. "If the goal is to help people live longer, healthier lives, this is a pretty obvious intervention," he says. It takes time and effort to nurture friendships, he notes. "[Instead of] putting the entire responsibility on the person and say: 'You've got to do everything yourself' — it's actually nice to have institutions to step in and help out, because they can leverage a lot of resources." The Friendship Project has enrolled dozens of participants so far — ranging in age from their 20s to their 70s — with plans to grow. Project leaders are working with some health insurers, including Tufts Health Plan and UnitedHealthcare, to expand the initiative beyond people with disabilities and mental health conditions. The volunteers are background-checked and sometimes fingerprinted before they meet their new friends. Volunteer coordinator Maryellen Killeen says she encourages the pairs to start with a simple outing. "I suggest a walk, hanging out at home, playing a game, going to the library," she says. "A lot of them meet at coffee shops." Other friends take shopping trips, or do laundry together. For Mills and Silverman, gym visits have become a monthly ritual. The pair met earlier this year and got along right away. Silverman's mother and primary caregiver, Stephanie Lynch, says he seems happier and more confident since he started spending time with Mills. "It's just human — people need companionship. They need to feel part of something," she says. Connections can develop even on the phone. That's the thinking behind the Phone Buddies program at Commonwealth Care Alliance, or CCA, a Boston-based health insurer for seniors and people with significant medical needs. In 2020, the insurer began recruiting its own administrative employees as volunteer friends. Now, CCA is also working with Advocates, the human services agency in charge of the Friendship Project, to help more of its members make connections. Chris Palmieri, CCA's chief executive, said these social interactions are designed to help members stay healthier and avoid unnecessary hospital visits. And while the phone chats are not doctors' appointments, medical issues sometimes come up. If this happens, the volunteer friend is able to relay messages to the member's care team. "If we're having a connection with somebody," Palmieri says, "we [can] pick up some cues on the phone calls. We can refer them into care that would have fallen through the cracks." Michelle Somerville, a quality specialist at CCA, volunteers about 15 minutes every Tuesday to call Ida Rodriguez, a CCA member in Lawrence. Despite their distance — they live 100 miles apart and have never met in person — the two have become fond of each other. They talk about their families, their health and their favorite items on the Taco Bell menu. Somerville says she enjoys hearing about the books Rodriguez reads, from Dan Brown to Dostoevsky. "I want someone to read to me, but I don't want to read myself," Somerville says with a smile. "So it was a match made in heaven." Rodriguez says her social life has slowed down as she's gotten older, and the weekly check-ins remind her she has a friend. On a recent call, she told Somerville how much the relationship means to her. "Everybody needs somebody to talk to," she says, "you know?" Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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NPR's Sarah McCammon speaks to Thomas Curran, author of The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough, about what makes perfectionism unhealthy. SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST: How do you feel about being less than perfect? Well, Thomas Curran, who teaches psychology at the London School of Economics, thinks of perfectionism as today's hidden epidemic.THOMAS CURRAN: I'm a recovering perfectionist myself, and I think I'll always hold on to a little bit of perfectionism.MCCAMMON: Curran writes about his own battles with perfectionism in his new book "The Perfection Trap." He told me that the book took him much longer to write than he'd expected because he obsessed over every word.CURRAN: Perfectionism is really about deficit, about lack, about a sense that we're not good enough, that we're not perfect enough. And deep down, we feel those inadequacies, those flaws, as very personal. They're things that we need to conceal and hide from everyone. And that's a very different starting point to the one I think a lot of people think perfectionism is - this idea, you know, this kind of active, optimistic sense of trying to do excellent things and be an incredible achiever. When you view it through the lens of deficit, then you can really begin to break down some of its more negative tendencies and how it impacts our lives and performances.MCCAMMON: And something you write about a lot in this book is your own sense of that deficit. Tell us more about how you grew up. How has your background shaped the way that you think about perfectionism?CURRAN: So I grew up in a small town in the United Kingdom, working-class background. And we didn't have a great deal, and that was something, I think, from a very young age, stayed with me. I know it sounds stupid, but when everyone around you has phones and the best trainers and the trendiest clothes and all the designer labels and all the rest of it, it's just stuff, right? But as a young person, if you don't have that stuff, it really matters. And so I think from a very young age, I learnt the shame of consumer culture that, you know, if you don't have the right items, that there's something wrong with you. There's something embarrassing about that life. And that really carried through me. And I definitely feel like I was overcompensating for that upbringing all the way through my young adult years where I was constantly trying to lift myself above other people, trying as hard as I can not to let that background define me and try to, I guess, elevate myself out of that. And, of course, that meant a lot of pressure.MCCAMMON: You know, as I hear you talk about competing to have the right clothes or the right shoes, and as I was reading your book, I was thinking a lot about economic inequality. And I wonder when people don't have their basic needs met or struggle to meet their basic needs, how does the idea of perfectionism overlay with those concerns? I mean, does it exacerbate inequality or is there a point at which, you know, perfectionism is kind of an irrelevant consideration if you're just trying to get by?CURRAN: Well, if we look at what's happening right now, inequality is spiraling out of control. It's really hard for young people in that context because, you know, if you go back to the '40s, '50s and '60s, you had the affluent society, the burgeoning middle class. You know, the average family was celebrated. You know, look at "The Flintstones." Look at "The Jetsons." These were just average families - one income earner with a house and a car in the suburbs. Those days where we celebrated the average family just don't exist anymore.What we have right now is a very narrow and selective set of professions that gain access into the 1%, and everybody outside of those professions - I'm thinking here tech, medicine, law, finance - are really finding it hard. Their wages aren't growing with inflation. Living standards are deteriorating. And by the way, they're still being told that they should be easily able to attain the same standard of life that their parents had. And they're meeting the world and finding that that's incredibly tough. They're seeing that. They're feeling it. They're experiencing it, and they're internalizing it as a need and a pressure to be perfect.MCCAMMON: What does your research tell you about the role of perfectionism and, you know, whether or not it actually helps us? Or is there a point at which it hinders us and actually is counterproductive?CURRAN: So when you actually look at the data, this idea that perfectionism is important to success simply isn't borne out, and the reason for this is twofold. One is because perfectionists do work hard, but they work unsustainably hard. The second reason perfectionists struggle to succeed is more interesting, and that's because they're world-class self-sabotagers. And I'll give you an example from a study that we conducted a few years ago. We brought people into our lab, and we told them to complete a certain distance in a certain amount of time on a bike. And on the first attempt, all of these young people worked extremely hard to try and meet this goal. And then at the end, we told them that you failed. No matter how well you did, you didn't meet that goal. And then we asked them to do it again.And something really interesting happened. People who weren't particularly perfectionistic didn't really change their effort on the second attempt. If anything, put in a little bit more effort. But the highly perfectionistic people did the opposite. Their effort fell off a cliff because what they were doing is they were trying to preserve their sense of self-esteem by withdrawing themselves from the activity, knowing that the anticipated guilt, shame and embarrassment of that initial failure was so fierce that they simply didn't want to experience it again. And in their minds, you can't fail at something you didn't try. And you see this in all sorts of self-sabotaging behaviors, not just complete withdrawal, but also things like procrastination and avoidance, where perfectionists are pulling themselves away from doing these really difficult tasks because they're managing, essentially, their anxiety of falling short.MCCAMMON: What are the things we can do in our own lives?CURRAN: There's a number of different things, but one of the things I focused on in the book is self-acceptance. And I think this is really important for us to recognize that we are imperfect human beings. We're exhaustible creatures, and we're often going to encounter setbacks. We're going to find that there's times in our lives where we're vulnerable. Things are going to happen to us that are completely out of our control, and that's OK. It's about understanding and recognizing that the world is unpredictable and that existing as an imperfect human being inside that world - it's OK to fail. It's OK to show vulnerability. It's OK to push ourselves out into the world, knowing that it might not always go to plan and that we might not reach our goals in the time frame we expected, but that's OK.MCCAMMON: Thomas Curran is the author of "The Perfection Trap: Embracing The Power Of Good Enough." Thank you so much for your time.CURRAN: Thank you.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST: How do you feel about being less than perfect? Well, Thomas Curran, who teaches psychology at the London School of Economics, thinks of perfectionism as today's hidden epidemic. THOMAS CURRAN: I'm a recovering perfectionist myself, and I think I'll always hold on to a little bit of perfectionism. MCCAMMON: Curran writes about his own battles with perfectionism in his new book "The Perfection Trap." He told me that the book took him much longer to write than he'd expected because he obsessed over every word. CURRAN: Perfectionism is really about deficit, about lack, about a sense that we're not good enough, that we're not perfect enough. And deep down, we feel those inadequacies, those flaws, as very personal. They're things that we need to conceal and hide from everyone. And that's a very different starting point to the one I think a lot of people think perfectionism is - this idea, you know, this kind of active, optimistic sense of trying to do excellent things and be an incredible achiever. When you view it through the lens of deficit, then you can really begin to break down some of its more negative tendencies and how it impacts our lives and performances. MCCAMMON: And something you write about a lot in this book is your own sense of that deficit. Tell us more about how you grew up. How has your background shaped the way that you think about perfectionism? CURRAN: So I grew up in a small town in the United Kingdom, working-class background. And we didn't have a great deal, and that was something, I think, from a very young age, stayed with me. I know it sounds stupid, but when everyone around you has phones and the best trainers and the trendiest clothes and all the designer labels and all the rest of it, it's just stuff, right? But as a young person, if you don't have that stuff, it really matters. And so I think from a very young age, I learnt the shame of consumer culture that, you know, if you don't have the right items, that there's something wrong with you. There's something embarrassing about that life. And that really carried through me. And I definitely feel like I was overcompensating for that upbringing all the way through my young adult years where I was constantly trying to lift myself above other people, trying as hard as I can not to let that background define me and try to, I guess, elevate myself out of that. And, of course, that meant a lot of pressure. MCCAMMON: You know, as I hear you talk about competing to have the right clothes or the right shoes, and as I was reading your book, I was thinking a lot about economic inequality. And I wonder when people don't have their basic needs met or struggle to meet their basic needs, how does the idea of perfectionism overlay with those concerns? I mean, does it exacerbate inequality or is there a point at which, you know, perfectionism is kind of an irrelevant consideration if you're just trying to get by? CURRAN: Well, if we look at what's happening right now, inequality is spiraling out of control. It's really hard for young people in that context because, you know, if you go back to the '40s, '50s and '60s, you had the affluent society, the burgeoning middle class. You know, the average family was celebrated. You know, look at "The Flintstones." Look at "The Jetsons." These were just average families - one income earner with a house and a car in the suburbs. Those days where we celebrated the average family just don't exist anymore. What we have right now is a very narrow and selective set of professions that gain access into the 1%, and everybody outside of those professions - I'm thinking here tech, medicine, law, finance - are really finding it hard. Their wages aren't growing with inflation. Living standards are deteriorating. And by the way, they're still being told that they should be easily able to attain the same standard of life that their parents had. And they're meeting the world and finding that that's incredibly tough. They're seeing that. They're feeling it. They're experiencing it, and they're internalizing it as a need and a pressure to be perfect. MCCAMMON: What does your research tell you about the role of perfectionism and, you know, whether or not it actually helps us? Or is there a point at which it hinders us and actually is counterproductive? CURRAN: So when you actually look at the data, this idea that perfectionism is important to success simply isn't borne out, and the reason for this is twofold. One is because perfectionists do work hard, but they work unsustainably hard. The second reason perfectionists struggle to succeed is more interesting, and that's because they're world-class self-sabotagers. And I'll give you an example from a study that we conducted a few years ago. We brought people into our lab, and we told them to complete a certain distance in a certain amount of time on a bike. And on the first attempt, all of these young people worked extremely hard to try and meet this goal. And then at the end, we told them that you failed. No matter how well you did, you didn't meet that goal. And then we asked them to do it again. And something really interesting happened. People who weren't particularly perfectionistic didn't really change their effort on the second attempt. If anything, put in a little bit more effort. But the highly perfectionistic people did the opposite. Their effort fell off a cliff because what they were doing is they were trying to preserve their sense of self-esteem by withdrawing themselves from the activity, knowing that the anticipated guilt, shame and embarrassment of that initial failure was so fierce that they simply didn't want to experience it again. And in their minds, you can't fail at something you didn't try. And you see this in all sorts of self-sabotaging behaviors, not just complete withdrawal, but also things like procrastination and avoidance, where perfectionists are pulling themselves away from doing these really difficult tasks because they're managing, essentially, their anxiety of falling short. MCCAMMON: What are the things we can do in our own lives? CURRAN: There's a number of different things, but one of the things I focused on in the book is self-acceptance. And I think this is really important for us to recognize that we are imperfect human beings. We're exhaustible creatures, and we're often going to encounter setbacks. We're going to find that there's times in our lives where we're vulnerable. Things are going to happen to us that are completely out of our control, and that's OK. It's about understanding and recognizing that the world is unpredictable and that existing as an imperfect human being inside that world - it's OK to fail. It's OK to show vulnerability. It's OK to push ourselves out into the world, knowing that it might not always go to plan and that we might not reach our goals in the time frame we expected, but that's OK. MCCAMMON: Thomas Curran is the author of "The Perfection Trap: Embracing The Power Of Good Enough." Thank you so much for your time. CURRAN: Thank you. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Jasmine Garsd New York City Mayor Eric Adams has announced a comprehensive plan to curb gun violence by addressing the root causes, and providing more support for the city's youth. A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: New York has a new plan to reduce gun violence. Crime in the city has gone down overall, but as much of the - but as in much of the U.S., there's been an increase in youth gun violence. Here's NPR's Jasmine Garsd.JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: First, the good news for New Yorkers - crime in the city is down by a lot. According to the NYPD, compared to June of last year, there was 25% less burglary. Gun violence overall is also down. Now the bad news - car theft has skyrocketed, and there's been a rise in youth involved in gun violence, which is part of a larger national trend. Earlier this week, Mayor Eric Adams unveiled the city's blueprint to tackle gun violence by looking at the factors that might lead young people to fall into violent altercations.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)ERIC ADAMS: The map is clear. You do an analysis of the map, you see high gun violence. You're also going to see high unemployment. You're going to see dropout rates high. You're going to see mental health issues high.GARSD: Another component is the lack of trust between NYPD and communities.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)ADAMS: That relationship is not severed all over the city. Some communities embrace their police because of their interactions. Other fear their police. We're going to dismantle that wall.GARSD: The mayor is himself a former member of the force. He's often accused of over relying on NYPD enforcement. But at least on paper, that is not the plan. In an exclusive interview with NPR, New York Deputy First Mayor Sheena Wright said the idea is to focus on the root causes of gun violence.SHEENA WRIGHT: Gun violence is a symptom of a larger issue that is really rooted in community well-being. It's rooted in kind of mental health and trauma. So by the time someone actually picks up a gun, points at someone and shoots it, there's a lot of failings that have happened before that.GARSD: Shootings among young people often happen because of a fight that starts on social media. One major component of the plan will be to tackle those types of altercations, Wright told NPR. Other strategies include relying on trusted community members to negotiate truces and providing better access to mental health. But the fundamental problem of easy access to guns from neighboring states with less-strict laws remains.WRIGHT: The prevalence of guns is outrageous. There are so many guns on the street, it is so easy for a young person to get their hand on a gun. A regular disagreement between young people that might be a fight is now a gun fight.GARSD: Addressing that problem, the mayor's office has said, would require action from lawmakers across the country.Jasmine Garsd, NPR News, New York. A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: New York has a new plan to reduce gun violence. Crime in the city has gone down overall, but as much of the - but as in much of the U.S., there's been an increase in youth gun violence. Here's NPR's Jasmine Garsd. JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: First, the good news for New Yorkers - crime in the city is down by a lot. According to the NYPD, compared to June of last year, there was 25% less burglary. Gun violence overall is also down. Now the bad news - car theft has skyrocketed, and there's been a rise in youth involved in gun violence, which is part of a larger national trend. Earlier this week, Mayor Eric Adams unveiled the city's blueprint to tackle gun violence by looking at the factors that might lead young people to fall into violent altercations. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) ERIC ADAMS: The map is clear. You do an analysis of the map, you see high gun violence. You're also going to see high unemployment. You're going to see dropout rates high. You're going to see mental health issues high. GARSD: Another component is the lack of trust between NYPD and communities. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) ADAMS: That relationship is not severed all over the city. Some communities embrace their police because of their interactions. Other fear their police. We're going to dismantle that wall. GARSD: The mayor is himself a former member of the force. He's often accused of over relying on NYPD enforcement. But at least on paper, that is not the plan. In an exclusive interview with NPR, New York Deputy First Mayor Sheena Wright said the idea is to focus on the root causes of gun violence. SHEENA WRIGHT: Gun violence is a symptom of a larger issue that is really rooted in community well-being. It's rooted in kind of mental health and trauma. So by the time someone actually picks up a gun, points at someone and shoots it, there's a lot of failings that have happened before that. GARSD: Shootings among young people often happen because of a fight that starts on social media. One major component of the plan will be to tackle those types of altercations, Wright told NPR. Other strategies include relying on trusted community members to negotiate truces and providing better access to mental health. But the fundamental problem of easy access to guns from neighboring states with less-strict laws remains. WRIGHT: The prevalence of guns is outrageous. There are so many guns on the street, it is so easy for a young person to get their hand on a gun. A regular disagreement between young people that might be a fight is now a gun fight. GARSD: Addressing that problem, the mayor's office has said, would require action from lawmakers across the country. Jasmine Garsd, NPR News, New York. Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Advertisement <iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/hereandnow/2023/07/24/empty-office-space-manhattan"></iframe> Since the pandemic, more people work from home at least a few days a week. That has left many big city centers plagued with vacant office space. Manhattan has a massive number of half-empty high rises. Here & Now's Scott Tong talks with Andrew Rice, feature writer at New York Magazine. This segment aired on July 24, 2023. Advertisement

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Timothy Olyphant, Norbert Leo Butz, Victor Williams and Marin Ireland in Justified: City Primeval Chuck Hodes/FX hide caption Timothy Olyphant, Norbert Leo Butz, Victor Williams and Marin Ireland in Justified: City Primeval Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week: Timothy Olyphant on 'Justified,' 'Deadwood' and marshals who interpret the law: Olyphant is best known for portraying lawmen in cowboy hats. He reprises the role of deputy U.S. marshal Raylan Givens in the sequel Justified: City Primeval, based on Elmore Leonard's novel. Why the crack cocaine epidemic hit Black communities 'first and worst': "We won't heal until we make sense of the crack epidemic," Donovan X. Ramsey says. His book, When Crack Was King, examines the drug's destructive path through the Black community. You can listen to the original interviews and review here: Timothy Olyphant on 'Justified,' 'Deadwood' and marshals who interpret the law Why the crack cocaine epidemic hit Black communities 'first and worst' Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Tonya Mosley President George H. W. Bush holds a bag of crack cocaine as he poses for photographers in the Oval Office of the White House, Sept. 5, 1989. Dennis Cook/AP hide caption President George H. W. Bush holds a bag of crack cocaine as he poses for photographers in the Oval Office of the White House, Sept. 5, 1989. On Sept. 5, 1989, President George H.W. Bush appeared on live television to discuss what he called the nation's "gravest domestic threat." Sitting at his desk in the oval office, Bush held up a bag of crack cocaine that had been seized in a park across from the White House, saying: "It's as innocent looking as candy, but it's turning our cities into battle zones." Looking back now, author and journalist Donovan X. Ramsey describes Bush's press conference as a form of propaganda designed to create a panic about the crack epidemic and to "demonize drug dealers and also addicts." "George H.W. Bush really wanted to start his administration with a bang and being tough on crime and was a big part of that," Ramsey says. "His office made a decision that they wanted to give a big address on drugs and they wanted to use crack cocaine as a prop." In his new book, When Crack Was King: A People's History of A Misunderstood Era, Ramsey examines the crack epidemic of the 1980s and early '90s from the points of view of four people who lived through it — and considers the lasting harm inflicted on the Black community by the government's response. For Ramsey, who grew up in Columbus, Ohio, the story is personal. "Being a Black man who was born in 1987, the crack epidemic predates me; I've never existed in a world where crack didn't exist," he says. "So I had this real kind of deep yearning to ... fill in what felt like a gap in between the civil rights movement that we hear so much about and where we are today. And the crack epidemic seemed like that missing link." Ramsey traces the advent of crack to a group of chemistry students at U.C. Berkeley who devised a recipe for freebasing cocaine using water and baking soda. The resulting substance provided a cheap, smokable way for people to get high quickly. Crack spread "like wildfire" across America, Ramsey says, but it tended to hit Black neighborhoods particularly hard: "What it means to be Black in this society is to be hit first and worst." As the epidemic took hold, the media presented apocalyptic views of Black neighborhoods transformed by the drug, and warned of a coming wave of "crack babies." Meanwhile, instead of treating the issue as a public health emergency, politicians instituted sentencing guidelines that punished users of crack more harshly than users of powdered cocaine. "It was originally 100-to-1, meaning that you got essentially 100 times the amount of [prison] time for crack than you would for the same substance in powder form," he says. "That was reduced to 18-to-1 around 2010. But it still exists. With all that we know about crack, with all the compassion that we have now for addicts, we still haven't moved far enough to eliminate that disparity entirely." On the government's role in allowing cocaine into the country in the 1980s We had ongoing efforts in South and Central America, in countries like Nicaragua, where we wanted to support rebels, known as Contras in Nicaragua, to overthrow their government. That was in our political interest. But Congress would not allow the U.S. government to fund a war in another country. So the U.S. government got creative — and this is well documented — through programs to actually deliver weapons to the Contras. And when that was no longer feasible, when that became exposed through Ollie North in the whole Iran-Contra affair, we just allowed them to smuggle drugs. And so a lot of those drugs, cocaine, ended up in the United States. And this has been investigated by a commission led by John Kerry, by efforts led by Maxine Waters. It's well documented through reporting at the time that there were lots of Contras that were selling cocaine to the two dealers in the United States. And a lot of it ended up in cities on the West Coast, in Oakland and in Los Angeles. On how the anti-drug campaign spearheaded by Ronald and Nancy Reagan vilified drug users They helped to fund the partnership for a Drug Free America, which produced lots of those really memorable commercials like the scrambled egg [PSA ad]: "This is your brain on drugs." And there also was a real campaign to ask Hollywood directors and writers to send their scripts to the White House for approval, ways of working in anti-drug messaging. This is how you get Nancy Reagan on an episode of Diff'rent Strokes. This is how you get Jesse on Saved by the Bell saying, "I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I'm so scared," because she's hopped up on speed. ... This is the birth of the "very special episode." And we have them to thank for that. Look, I'm a kid of the '80s. I remember so much of that messaging. ... It didn't really teach me anything useful about drugs. What it really did was just made me deathly afraid of drug addicts. It made me keep people who I even suspected of being drug addicts — the average houseless person on the street — so far away from me because I was terrified that they were just these zombies that were out to get me and to get me hooked on drugs. It made them untouchables. ... I think that many people will will try to credit Nancy Reagan and the "Just Say No" campaign and DARE and all that stuff for ending the drug epidemic or the crack epidemic. There's no evidence of that. But I do think there's lots of evidence that the propaganda made us not understand addiction in ways that we're still paying for. On the myth of the "crack baby" A researcher named Ira Chasnoff in Chicago did one study of a handful of Black mothers who were cocaine users. And what he found after those mothers had given birth was that many of their babies had things like tremors and low birth weight, and they sort of struggled to meet benchmarks in their infancy. And from that, he published a report about cocaine-exposed babies that then launched what became this "crack baby" notion. And lots of reporting was done about these irredeemable babies, mostly Black and Latino children, and how they were going to be a huge weight on society, that they would sort of never be able to come back from what their mothers had done to them. Charles Krauthammer, a columnist who was writing for the Post at the time, said that death would have been more suitable for these babies than to actually live. And what we've seen through the research, longitudinal studies of cocaine-exposed babies, was that ... the symptoms that Chasnoff were seeing were actually related to premature birth. [Read more on that reasearch here.] That the effect of cocaine is that it can cause complications that then lead to premature birth, and that the tremors and the developmental things that were being seen in infancy were actually associated with the babies being born early, and not necessarily with the cocaine exposure. And then, decades later, there is no measurable difference between those children and their counterparts, children born at the same time raised in the same areas with the same sort of resources. So I say that to say that the "crack baby" myth has been debunked. On how the "crack baby" myth impacted all Black children For me, as a Black child growing up in the '80s and '90s, I was treated as though I was a suspect of being a "crack baby," that the ways that teachers treated me and really other Black children in my classes — mainly Black boys — was as though there was something fundamentally wrong with us that we needed to be maybe medicated to be able to be in class, or that any challenge that we presented as students, whether it was talking too much, which was my problem, or if it was not being able to sit still, that that was evidence that something was wrong with us. On crack providing a way for members of the Black community to escape poverty I hadn't really considered this when I set out to write the book because in my family, drug dealers had really kind of always been villainized, even though I had relatives that sold drugs. ... For the average, usually young, man, someone like Shawn McCray, who I write about in my book, is that you saw people who had walked holes in their shoes, whose families struggle to pay the rent, be able to provide basic necessities to have some piece of what maybe felt like the American dream. Not most drug dealers got rich, not most were kingpins ... or super predators who were out to get kids hooked on drugs and who were eager to get into gun battles in the middle of streets. Most of them were terrified for their lives. But it was really the only way that they could make money in a period where unemployment was so high, and Black youth unemployment was even higher. And anybody that's been a Black teenager trying to find a job understands just how frustrating that can be. On how the crack epidemic came to an end let's celebrate the fact that the crack epidemic is over. Let's celebrate the fact that we survived it without a whole lot of intervention from the government and that it was young people who made the decision to not continue the trend. Dominic X. Ramsey The crack epidemic ended not because the drug warriors rode in on white horses or because Nancy Reagan said, "Just Say No." The crack epidemic ended because the next cohort of young people who would have used crack looked around at their communities and saw the devastation and said, "Not for me." And I think a really important thing to underline, is that .. we didn't celebrate that. So let's celebrate the fact that the crack epidemic is over. Let's celebrate the fact that we survived it without a whole lot of intervention from the government and that it was young people who made the decision to not continue the trend. And that's not according to me. That's according to research by the Department of Justice, where they surveyed the hardest hit cities around the country and interviewed young people and said essentially "Why? Why aren't you doing crack?" And they said, "That whole world is too scary." On the difficulty of telling this story In covering Black America, I've also had to cover a lot of tragedy and hear a lot of traumatic things from people. And I had always prided myself on being able to kind take it in and to process it and turn it into something beautiful and meaningful and not be affected. But after five years of putting together this book, I was completely wrecked. I lost 40 pounds. I had a heart tremor where I was getting palpitations and had to wear a heart monitor. Every loud noise scared me. My nerves were completely shot. ... I had to take seriously what had happened and what had happened to the people that I talked to, and how seriously impactful those events were in their lives and how the stuff that I went through impacted me. I was a kid having to get down on the ground when I heard gunshots. And that was just a normal thing: You're in the middle of play, you hear gunshots, you get on the ground, you get back up and you keep playing. Having my first bike stolen by a crack addict and the fear of having to go home and explain that to my mom, that I had given somebody my bike to fix and he never came back with it. That stuff lived in me and it needed to be excavated. I want to say that that I'm doing much better now, including having gained the weight back, unfortunately. But I think the message from that for me is that lots of us that lived through that period, we still have some stuff that we have to deal with. We need to ask our family about that aunt or uncle who kind of disappeared and nobody talks about. We need to first learn their stories, then lift their stories up as a part of our stories. ... We won't heal until we make sense of the crack epidemic — not as this aside, but as a part of who we've been and what we've been through. Sam Briger and Thea Chaloner produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the web. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Ilana Masad In the introduction to his new book, When Crack was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era, journalist Donovan X. Ramsey recalls how during his childhood in the early 1990s, the term "crackhead" was used as an insult. "I suppose we made it a slur," he writes, "because we feared what it represented, a rock bottom to which any of us could sink. That's what children do when they're in search of power over things that frighten us. We reduce them to words, bite-size things that can be spat out at a moment's notice." If only that same urge wasn't so common among adults, especially those in positions of power. But as Ramsey details in King, the crack epidemic is (still) misunderstood in large part due to the willful ignorance reflected in mainstream media coverage in the 1980s and '90s, as well as the political convenience of soundbites like "crack baby" and "superpredator," which were actively used to pass legislation that further policed and controlled poor communities of color, and Black people in particular. Crack is the common term for cocaine that's been processed using baking soda or ammonia and water in order to make it smokable. This method of cocaine use is highly addictive in part because it provides an intense and fast high that requires frequent use in order to maintain. As with other drug epidemics, there is no single event that led to crack's popularity and its disastrous effects on so many of its users and dealers. Rather, the epidemic spread due to a multitude of reasons such as government policies that economically isolated poor communities of color, the so-called War on Drugs and its focus on criminalization, and the falling price of cocaine and the ease with which it could be turned to crack. Ramsey focuses, too, on another important element: grief. The generational trauma and grief Black Americans live with is part of that, of course, but Ramsey focuses as well on the "profound grief [which was the] result of everything they lost in the sixties and seventies — assassinations of leaders, destruction of their communities from riots, a Civil Rights Movement that cost them so much but ultimately missed the mark securing opportunity and freedom." When Crack was King follows four people who lived through the epidemic in various ways. Lennie Woodley, now a substance abuse counselor for LA county, grew up in a tumultuous and abusive home, with a mother who yelled and beat her and an uncle who started as a source of solace before he began molesting her. She started using cocaine, first as powder and then as crack, during her early adolescence, and spent nearly three decades in the grips of her addiction. Through her story, Ramsey looks at how "[w]omen users, black women in particular, fell to the absolute lowest rung on the nation's social ladder" and how these women users had "fewer avenues for income and were often steered into sex work, if they weren't sex workers already." Ramsey also follows the stories of Elgin Swift and Shawn McCray, two men who worked for a time as dealers, though in different ways and with different scopes. Swift grew up in Yonkers, NY, with a single father who became addicted to crack while Swift was still young, leaving him to largely fend for himself, which included, eventually, dealing small amounts of crack. McCray, on the other hand, was part of Zoo Crew, a now-legendary drug trafficking ring in Newark, NJ, which spun off to become a local apparel brand name as well as, eventually, the name of McCray's successful youth basketball program. Through these men's narratives, Ramsey highlights the nuances of drug dealing, how for many it's less a chosen career and more a way to make money when there are no other jobs to be found. Additionally, despite the well-worn stereotype of morally corrupt dealers, these men weren't trying to broaden their customer base by encouraging addiction in young people. By the height of the crack epidemic in the mid-1980s, there simply weren't many casual users of the drug, and young people in the 1990s were disdainful of the substance and turning away from it and heroin as well. The final character Ramsey follows is Kurt Schmoke, who served as the mayor of Baltimore during much of the 1980s and who advocated for drug decriminalization long before there was support for such an approach. Threaded through the four character studies are details of the era's politics, the crime bills that led to the drastic increase in mass incarceration, legacy media's insistence on sensationalizing crack and deploring its users, the ineffective War on Drugs and its disastrous consequences, and more, always in clear prose that focuses as much as possible on the flesh and blood individuals who were harmed by the epidemic. An excellent work of people-first journalism, When Crack Was King offers not only a vivid and frank history, but points to the way communities tend to save themselves even as they're being actively targeted by state policy and violence. The crack epidemic may be over, Ramsey notes at book's end, but drug fads and epidemics come and go, and our government and media apparatus must learn to respond to them better — which, judging by the coverage of and response to the opioid epidemic, may yet take some time. Ilana Masad is a fiction writer, book critic, and author of the novel All My Mother's Lovers. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Ayesha Rascoe NPR's Ayesha Rascoe talks to author Donovan X. Ramsey about his new book, "When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era." It tells the story of the crack cocaine epidemic. AYESHA RASCOE, HOST: One of Donovan X. Ramsey's earliest childhood memories was of Michelle from down the street.DONOVAN X RAMSEY: Every night as I was falling asleep, she would start, you know, her activity. And that consisted of playing loud music. She loved "If Only You Knew" by Patti LaBelle, and she would play it on a loop. And I felt connected to her. And I, you know, came to understand as I got older that she was dealing with addiction, that she was a crack addict.RASCOE: Decades later, he's written a book called "When Crack Was King: A People's History Of A Misunderstood Era." It's a work of nonfiction told through the eyes of several people, including an addict, a drug dealer and a politician. He begins the book by describing the lives of the people before crack cocaine hit their neighborhoods.RAMSEY: That was super important to me as somebody whose community was impacted by this as a, you know, a Black person, as a Black journalist, because our lives are often treated as though they have no context and no meaning. So being a child of the '80s - I was born in 1987 - I have never existed in a world where crack did not exist. And I desperately wanted to know what my community was like before crack.RASCOE: I have to say, I was really struck by the story of Shawn because Shawn grew up in the exact same projects in Newark as my dad and his family. So hearing the story of crack in Newark was extremely close to home for me. But tell me about Shawn, because he got involved in another side of the crack epidemic, which - he became a dealer.RAMSEY: Yeah. Shawn McCray - you know, born in the early '70s. He grows up in the projects, right? And he's a part of - what people don't realize - an incredible community in the projects. And you can't, you know, stack hundreds of people on top of each other and not create a community.He ended up - despite having a very promising academic career and getting a scholarship to play basketball all through Catholic school and into college, he was still drawn into that street life because of his connection to his community. And also because as a young man growing up in the 80s, he had such a desire for more. And crack was this incredible opportunity for guys like him to make some real money. So, you know, I liken Shawn to young white men who went west during the gold rush, that he was doing something incredibly risky and I think many would say dangerous and stupid, but because it gave him a possibility for something that he wouldn't have otherwise.RASCOE: I feel like what you capture with Shawn was something that I think that a lot of people don't fully understand, which is, like, for him to have really left, he would have really had to leave his community.RAMSEY: It was really important for me with Shawn to kind of pull back the veil of the superpredator myth. Hillary Clinton very infamously, you know, was on camera giving a speech about how young Black men that were selling drugs were superpredators who, quote, "needed to be brought to heel." And the truth about Shawn is that he was just an average kid who saw a way out. And anybody that's come from tough neighborhood like I did, like Shawn did, like many Black folks in America do, that you are told that your goal should be to get out of your neighborhood. And no one that makes that your goal ever accounts for the isolation, the loneliness...RASCOE: Yeah.RAMSEY: ...Of having to be the only one, being the first one...RASCOE: Yeah.RAMSEY: ...In every room that you go in for the rest of your life. And he wanted to stay connected to his friends. Most drug dealers were not kingpins. They were making enough money to buy a car, to pay their mom's rent. And that was Shawn's position. And I think that - you know, that's not to excuse the fact that he was selling poison, something that he grappled with, but those were the options available to him.RASCOE: When you think about the crack epidemic, the way that it hit particularly Black neighborhoods - like, it's difficult to even, like, wrap your head around. How do you count the cost of that?RAMSEY: You know, it is, I think, nearly impossible to even measure the devastation when you think about all that our cities could have been and all that our communities could have been had it not been for crack. But I think that despite of our inability to measure crack's impact, there are some clear things that we owe the people who survived it as a way of trying to repair the damage that we can measure, like sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine that still exists despite the fact that those substances are chemically identical, that they're the same substance. We owe it to the folks that lost so much to end that. We owe it to those folks to end mandatory minimum sentences. We also owe it to those people to fight back against the fear and the shame that created a space for drug abuse and addiction in the first place but that also created a space for a completely draconian response.RASCOE: Do you think that much has changed since then? We're currently in the middle of another drug epidemic with opioids and fentanyl. And if so, do you think it's because the nature of this epidemic is so different?RAMSEY: If I can be completely frank...RASCOE: Yes. Yeah, please.RAMSEY: There is a lot more compassion for opioid addicts now because the face of opioid addiction is white folks in the middle of the country. I think that's just - that that's just true, that the average American feels much closer to that addict than they did to the crack addict. And the shame of it is that addiction is addiction. And also that because we refuse to have compassion for crack addicts, we missed an opportunity to fix the problem - right? - that people who are struggling with opioid addiction now and don't have the services and resources they need in place don't have them because we didn't have a public health response to crack, because all that we created was this huge dragnet that we applied across communities of color. So now white folks are getting caught up in that dragnet, and now everybody thinks, OK, we got to do something about this. And I hope that we do because wrong is wrong and right is right.RASCOE: Do you feel like the lessons of the crack epidemic have really been fully learned?RAMSEY: No, they haven't. Just because there might be more compassion for drug users and drug addicts doesn't mean that we're smarter about policy solutions. It doesn't mean that we are more diligent - right? - about sticking to what we know is right, that that fear and that shame can always come in and confuse people. What I see is this reinvigoration of the culture wars that villainizes and criminalizes the most vulnerable people.RASCOE: That's Donovan X. Ramsey, the author of "When Crack Was King." Thank you so much for being with us.RAMSEY: Thank you so much for having me. AYESHA RASCOE, HOST: One of Donovan X. Ramsey's earliest childhood memories was of Michelle from down the street. DONOVAN X RAMSEY: Every night as I was falling asleep, she would start, you know, her activity. And that consisted of playing loud music. She loved "If Only You Knew" by Patti LaBelle, and she would play it on a loop. And I felt connected to her. And I, you know, came to understand as I got older that she was dealing with addiction, that she was a crack addict. RASCOE: Decades later, he's written a book called "When Crack Was King: A People's History Of A Misunderstood Era." It's a work of nonfiction told through the eyes of several people, including an addict, a drug dealer and a politician. He begins the book by describing the lives of the people before crack cocaine hit their neighborhoods. RAMSEY: That was super important to me as somebody whose community was impacted by this as a, you know, a Black person, as a Black journalist, because our lives are often treated as though they have no context and no meaning. So being a child of the '80s - I was born in 1987 - I have never existed in a world where crack did not exist. And I desperately wanted to know what my community was like before crack. RASCOE: I have to say, I was really struck by the story of Shawn because Shawn grew up in the exact same projects in Newark as my dad and his family. So hearing the story of crack in Newark was extremely close to home for me. But tell me about Shawn, because he got involved in another side of the crack epidemic, which - he became a dealer. RAMSEY: Yeah. Shawn McCray - you know, born in the early '70s. He grows up in the projects, right? And he's a part of - what people don't realize - an incredible community in the projects. And you can't, you know, stack hundreds of people on top of each other and not create a community. He ended up - despite having a very promising academic career and getting a scholarship to play basketball all through Catholic school and into college, he was still drawn into that street life because of his connection to his community. And also because as a young man growing up in the 80s, he had such a desire for more. And crack was this incredible opportunity for guys like him to make some real money. So, you know, I liken Shawn to young white men who went west during the gold rush, that he was doing something incredibly risky and I think many would say dangerous and stupid, but because it gave him a possibility for something that he wouldn't have otherwise. RASCOE: I feel like what you capture with Shawn was something that I think that a lot of people don't fully understand, which is, like, for him to have really left, he would have really had to leave his community. RAMSEY: It was really important for me with Shawn to kind of pull back the veil of the superpredator myth. Hillary Clinton very infamously, you know, was on camera giving a speech about how young Black men that were selling drugs were superpredators who, quote, "needed to be brought to heel." And the truth about Shawn is that he was just an average kid who saw a way out. And anybody that's come from tough neighborhood like I did, like Shawn did, like many Black folks in America do, that you are told that your goal should be to get out of your neighborhood. And no one that makes that your goal ever accounts for the isolation, the loneliness... RASCOE: Yeah. RAMSEY: ...Of having to be the only one, being the first one... RASCOE: Yeah. RAMSEY: ...In every room that you go in for the rest of your life. And he wanted to stay connected to his friends. Most drug dealers were not kingpins. They were making enough money to buy a car, to pay their mom's rent. And that was Shawn's position. And I think that - you know, that's not to excuse the fact that he was selling poison, something that he grappled with, but those were the options available to him. RASCOE: When you think about the crack epidemic, the way that it hit particularly Black neighborhoods - like, it's difficult to even, like, wrap your head around. How do you count the cost of that? RAMSEY: You know, it is, I think, nearly impossible to even measure the devastation when you think about all that our cities could have been and all that our communities could have been had it not been for crack. But I think that despite of our inability to measure crack's impact, there are some clear things that we owe the people who survived it as a way of trying to repair the damage that we can measure, like sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine that still exists despite the fact that those substances are chemically identical, that they're the same substance. We owe it to the folks that lost so much to end that. We owe it to those folks to end mandatory minimum sentences. We also owe it to those people to fight back against the fear and the shame that created a space for drug abuse and addiction in the first place but that also created a space for a completely draconian response. RASCOE: Do you think that much has changed since then? We're currently in the middle of another drug epidemic with opioids and fentanyl. And if so, do you think it's because the nature of this epidemic is so different? RAMSEY: If I can be completely frank... RASCOE: Yes. Yeah, please. RAMSEY: There is a lot more compassion for opioid addicts now because the face of opioid addiction is white folks in the middle of the country. I think that's just - that that's just true, that the average American feels much closer to that addict than they did to the crack addict. And the shame of it is that addiction is addiction. And also that because we refuse to have compassion for crack addicts, we missed an opportunity to fix the problem - right? - that people who are struggling with opioid addiction now and don't have the services and resources they need in place don't have them because we didn't have a public health response to crack, because all that we created was this huge dragnet that we applied across communities of color. So now white folks are getting caught up in that dragnet, and now everybody thinks, OK, we got to do something about this. And I hope that we do because wrong is wrong and right is right. RASCOE: Do you feel like the lessons of the crack epidemic have really been fully learned? RAMSEY: No, they haven't. Just because there might be more compassion for drug users and drug addicts doesn't mean that we're smarter about policy solutions. It doesn't mean that we are more diligent - right? - about sticking to what we know is right, that that fear and that shame can always come in and confuse people. What I see is this reinvigoration of the culture wars that villainizes and criminalizes the most vulnerable people. RASCOE: That's Donovan X. Ramsey, the author of "When Crack Was King." Thank you so much for being with us. RAMSEY: Thank you so much for having me. Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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catholic school

epidemic

patti labelle

NPR's Rob Schmitz talks to Philadelphia City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson about gun violence in the city following this week's mass shooting that killed five people, including a teenager. ROB SCHMITZ, HOST: President Biden is urging state and congressional leaders to address the gun violence epidemic after multiple shootings killed at least 15 people in the U.S. over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. In Philadelphia, a gunman killed five people, including a teenager, and wounded two others, both children, in an apparent random attack Monday night. Here's Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)JIM KENNEY: I am frustrated and outraged that mass shootings like this continue to happen in communities across the United States. This country needs to reexamine its conscience and find out how to get guns out of dangerous people's hands.SCHMITZ: We're now joined by Philadelphia City Council member Kenyatta Johnson. He founded and chairs the council's special committee on gun violence prevention. Good morning, Mr. Johnson.KENYATTA JOHNSON: Hey, good morning, Rob. How are you?SCHMITZ: Pretty good. Let's start with Monday's shooting in your city. Do authorities know whether there was a possible motive for the attack?JOHNSON: To date, right now, we don't have a motive on the actual attack. It's being viewed as being a random attack. But even if that's the case, it's totally unacceptable. And there are several family members who are hurting from the loss of their loved ones, as well as a community and a city.SCHMITZ: This is a tragic event. You know, Mayor Kenney says the country needs to get guns out of people's hands. While it waits for more action on the federal level, what can cities like Philadelphia do to reduce gun violence?JOHNSON: Well, as chair of the special committee on gun violence, we've taken a three-pronged approach focusing on prevention, intervention, and most importantly, enforcement. And so, making sure that we're investing in organizations, what we call boots on the ground, that support and focus on young people who are carrying guns and providing them opportunities so they don't pick up guns in the first place; on the intervention side, finding ways and working with organizations that intervene and resolve conflicts around individuals so they don't pick up guns to resolve conflicts in the first place; and last and most importantly, enforcement - tracking down where illegal guns are coming from. We know there are no gun factories in the neighborhoods here in the city of Philadelphia. So where are these guns coming from?Focusing on and advocating for gun laws that will prevent individuals who have mental health issues from having guns in the first place - there are rumors that the individual involved in this particular shooting had some type of mental health issues. And so we want to focus on mental health as a key way to addressing gun violence and the public health epidemic and also making sure we are holding individuals accountable for picking up guns in the first place. And so we have to take a comprehensive approach. But there are way too many guns plaguing the streets of Philadelphia, as well as urban cities across this country.SCHMITZ: Right. I mean, are there any cities or states in the U.S. that you feel have managed gun violence effectively? And is Philadelphia looking outwards to sort of learn from these places?JOHNSON: Well, there were some - there are some cities in California. Oakland has a program that we have been taking a look at. And this is a program that focuses on violence interrupters - individuals who are going out in the community who have a background in addressing issues of gun violence, maybe have experience of being involved in gun violence in their own lives - as one of the key ways in addressing gun violence amongst young people in neighborhoods, but also taking a public health approach as well. And so we have to make sure that we are addressing this with a all-hands-on-deck approach. And that's the only way we're going to solve this issue of gun violence, not only in the city of Philadelphia, but also throughout the country.SCHMITZ: That's Philadelphia City Council member Kenyatta Johnson. Mr. Johnson, thanks so much for your time.JOHNSON: Thank you very much, Rob. Take care. ROB SCHMITZ, HOST: President Biden is urging state and congressional leaders to address the gun violence epidemic after multiple shootings killed at least 15 people in the U.S. over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. In Philadelphia, a gunman killed five people, including a teenager, and wounded two others, both children, in an apparent random attack Monday night. Here's Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) JIM KENNEY: I am frustrated and outraged that mass shootings like this continue to happen in communities across the United States. This country needs to reexamine its conscience and find out how to get guns out of dangerous people's hands. SCHMITZ: We're now joined by Philadelphia City Council member Kenyatta Johnson. He founded and chairs the council's special committee on gun violence prevention. Good morning, Mr. Johnson. KENYATTA JOHNSON: Hey, good morning, Rob. How are you? SCHMITZ: Pretty good. Let's start with Monday's shooting in your city. Do authorities know whether there was a possible motive for the attack? JOHNSON: To date, right now, we don't have a motive on the actual attack. It's being viewed as being a random attack. But even if that's the case, it's totally unacceptable. And there are several family members who are hurting from the loss of their loved ones, as well as a community and a city. SCHMITZ: This is a tragic event. You know, Mayor Kenney says the country needs to get guns out of people's hands. While it waits for more action on the federal level, what can cities like Philadelphia do to reduce gun violence? JOHNSON: Well, as chair of the special committee on gun violence, we've taken a three-pronged approach focusing on prevention, intervention, and most importantly, enforcement. And so, making sure that we're investing in organizations, what we call boots on the ground, that support and focus on young people who are carrying guns and providing them opportunities so they don't pick up guns in the first place; on the intervention side, finding ways and working with organizations that intervene and resolve conflicts around individuals so they don't pick up guns to resolve conflicts in the first place; and last and most importantly, enforcement - tracking down where illegal guns are coming from. We know there are no gun factories in the neighborhoods here in the city of Philadelphia. So where are these guns coming from? Focusing on and advocating for gun laws that will prevent individuals who have mental health issues from having guns in the first place - there are rumors that the individual involved in this particular shooting had some type of mental health issues. And so we want to focus on mental health as a key way to addressing gun violence and the public health epidemic and also making sure we are holding individuals accountable for picking up guns in the first place. And so we have to take a comprehensive approach. But there are way too many guns plaguing the streets of Philadelphia, as well as urban cities across this country. SCHMITZ: Right. I mean, are there any cities or states in the U.S. that you feel have managed gun violence effectively? And is Philadelphia looking outwards to sort of learn from these places? JOHNSON: Well, there were some - there are some cities in California. Oakland has a program that we have been taking a look at. And this is a program that focuses on violence interrupters - individuals who are going out in the community who have a background in addressing issues of gun violence, maybe have experience of being involved in gun violence in their own lives - as one of the key ways in addressing gun violence amongst young people in neighborhoods, but also taking a public health approach as well. And so we have to make sure that we are addressing this with a all-hands-on-deck approach. And that's the only way we're going to solve this issue of gun violence, not only in the city of Philadelphia, but also throughout the country. SCHMITZ: That's Philadelphia City Council member Kenyatta Johnson. Mr. Johnson, thanks so much for your time. JOHNSON: Thank you very much, Rob. Take care. Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

philadelphia city

epidemic

rob schmitz

jim kenney

By  Destinee Adams Six months into the year, more than 21,000 people have died because of gun-related injuries in the United States. Doctors and public health officials have a word to describe the rising number of people killed or hurt by guns in recent years: epidemic. "I would certainly consider the problem of firearm injuries and firearm violence as an epidemic in the United States," said Patrick Carter, director of the University of Michigan Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention, whose research is partly funded by the National Institutes of Health. "When we think about what the term epidemic means, it means a sudden increase in the numbers, or incidents, of an event over what would be considered a baseline level," Carter told Morning Edition. Since the mid-2000s, the United States has seen year-after-year increases in the number of deaths and injuries from guns "that would mirror what we would consider to be a sudden increase consistent with an epidemic," Carter said. For those charged with protecting public health in the United States, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an epidemic is defined as a sudden outbreak or an unexpected spike in an illness in a single country or area. Because COVID-19 spread around the world, it was considered a pandemic. The label — which has been applied to infectious diseases as well as things like opioid addiction — creates a sense of emergency or crisis. The top public health official in the country, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, has long called the deaths and injuries from firearms an "epidemic." "Whenever you have a large number of people dying from preventable reasons that constitutes a public health crisis," he told NPR's Here and Now in January. "And that has been the case for gun violence, sadly, in our country for a long time." President Biden has also referred to the increase in gun violence in the United States as a "gun violence epidemic" several times, including on National Gun Violence Awareness Day. So have doctors and health researchers. The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research held a symposium in February titled "Addressing Gun Violence as a Public Health Epidemic." Experts at the symposium took an approach reminiscent of how health officials approach epidemics of disease. They discussed "expanding our lens beyond prosecuting gun crime to prevention, harm reduction and even culture-shifting." Gun deaths increased by 23 percent, from 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic, to 2021, according to Pew Research Center. The number of gun deaths in 2021, 48,830, was the largest on record, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The level of violence "most definitely is a public health emergency," said Daniel Webster, an American health professor and director of the Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy at Johns Hopkins. "It is a leading cause of death for large segments of the population, including young people," he said. "And it also has enormous impacts beyond fatalities that really affect mental health and well-being, even for those who are not directly shot." Students from Philadelphia hold photos of gun violence victims at a rally at the Pennsylvania Capitol pressing for stronger gun-control laws, March 23, 2023, in Harrisburg, Pa. Marc Levy/AP hide caption Students from Philadelphia hold photos of gun violence victims at a rally at the Pennsylvania Capitol pressing for stronger gun-control laws, March 23, 2023, in Harrisburg, Pa. Gun violence appeared to slightly ebb last year as the COVID-19 pandemic subsided. The final number of gun-related deaths in 2022 is still being tallied as places like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pull together numbers on suicides. There were an estimated 20,138 firearm deaths, excluding suicides, according to The Trace. But gun violence continues to shake American life this year, especially during holidays when people are in large gatherings. There have been more than 300 mass shootings this year. And half of gun-related deaths this year were suicides. Chicago was struck by gun violence over the Juneteenth and Memorial Day weekends, which both turned out to be some of the deadliest spans the city has seen in years, Sophie Sherry, Chicago Sun Times reporter, told Morning Edition. Over the Juneteenth weekend 75 people were shot in the city and 13 people died. "What the count is right now would be the most people shot in a single week," Sherry said on the Tuesday after Juneteenth. "Memorial Day weekend was also one of the most violent since 2016 with 61 people shot here in the city. But unfortunately, obviously, this past weekend, we saw far more shootings than that." Over the same weekend, four people were shot in an apartment complex behind a church in Kellogg, Idaho; they all died from gunshot wounds. There were also mass shootings in California, Maryland, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Washington state and Wisconsin. There were 14.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2021, which is the highest rate since the early 1990s, and just below the historic peak of 16.3 deaths per 100,000 people in 1974, according to Pew Research. In the 1990s, the rise of gun deaths were also referred to as an epidemic by the National Institutes of Health. In 1993, gun manufacturers increased the production of guns priced at $100 or less, while the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms slacked off, according to "The Role of Supply in 1980s and 1990s Youth Violence." That year murders, with weapons such as guns, arson and poison, reached its highest point on record at the time. The next year, the federal government doubled ATF law enforcement funding from $2 million to $4 million, which reinforced the Brady Background Check and reduced gun purchases, according to The Trace. As the 1990s unfolded, cheap gun manufacturers went out of business because of liability lawsuits, and gun suicide and murder rates decreased. "It is a public health issue. It mirrors every other public health issue that we've had in this country," Carter said. "Like any other public health problem, it is possible to solve with data-driven solutions." Surgeon General Murthy said that viewing gun violence as a public health emergency will lead to more insight and data on the causes of violence and possible ways to curb it. Still, he's resisting a push from the California Medical Association to publish a Surgeon General's report on the hazards of gun violence similar to the major 1964 report on the dangers of smoking. After declaring gun violence a "public health crisis" in 2016, the American Medical Association has regularly put forward ways to help bring down the number of deaths and injuries. Most recently, in early June, it officially called for strengthening background checks and limiting the sale of multiple firearms. This allows more doctors to petition courts for protective orders for patients at risk of gun violence, and pushes social media companies to remove posts "glorifying firearm violence." Meanwhile, Webster says establishing purchaser licensing requirements reduces gun-related homicides, suicides and mass shootings. He also suggests community violence intervention programs in low-income communities. These programs put individuals with "street credibility" in positions to promote non-violent alternatives to conflict. Carter says identifying gun violence as an epidemic is just a step in the right direction to addressing the fatal problem in America, because it leads to thinking about how to use scientific and public health resources "toward addressing all facets of the problem." "I think it is an important label. But I don't think it's sufficient to address the problem," Carter said. Lisa Lambert edited this digital story. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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sophie sherry

diseases

disease

NPR's A Martinez speaks with Daniel Webster of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions about what the word "epidemic" means when it comes to gun violence. A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: When we talk about gun violence in America, we often use terms like epidemic. So what's the actual definition of that word?DANIEL WEBSTER: An epidemic is a rapid spread of disease to many at-risk individuals in a given population within a relatively short period of time.MARTÍNEZ: That's Daniel Webster, a health policy expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. I asked him about that idea, of framing gun violence as an illness using terms like epidemic.WEBSTER: Well, that's the classic thing from a public health textbook. But we have long been thinking about gun violence as a public health problem that has many analogies to the conditions that we deal with in public health, including infectious diseases.MARTÍNEZ: And what are those analogies?WEBSTER: Well, of course, it has impact on the kind of indicators that we think about in public health. It affects mortality risk, injury risk, mental health. But also, importantly, aside from those most basic and measurable kind of things, it is similar to other public health problems in that rates of gun violence are greatly impacted by how healthy conditions are in the places that people live and in the behaviors that they engage in. So some of the same strategies and approaches that we think about in public health to reduce substance abuse, cardiovascular disease and many other kind of conditions, we apply similar types of methodology and thinking to curtail the problem of gun violence.MARTÍNEZ: If epidemic is maybe too narrow of a word for gun violence, would it qualify, then, as a public health emergency?WEBSTER: Almost definitely it's a public health emergency. And again, just to be clear, I would consider gun violence also an epidemic. It is a leading cause of death for large segments of the population, including young people. This has been the case for subgroups of, for example, young adult individuals who are Black, for example, has long been a leading cause of death. And it also has enormous impacts beyond fatalities that really affect mental health and well-being, even for those who were not directly shot.MARTÍNEZ: What's an achievable goal for a public health intervention in gun violence?WEBSTER: So I'll start with gun policy. And the policy that we have found to have the largest impact across many forms of gun violence is purchaser licensing requirements for those who purchase firearms. We have found significant reductions, roughly around 30%, in firearm homicides and suicides. We've also seen large decreases in fatal mass shootings associated with firearm purchaser licensing. And we've even seen lower levels of gun violence involving law enforcement officers, both as victims being shot in the line of duty or shooting civilians in the line of duty.So simply, this is a policy that decreases the availability of guns in risky situations and with risky individuals. It has high public support, and it affects multiple forms of gun violence. So that, I think, is very achievable. Another kind of approach that I've studied is referred to as community violence intervention programs, intervention that involves individuals who have credibility on the streets engaging with the highest-risk individuals, promoting non-violent alternatives to responding to conflicts and provocations. We've seen in some communities, you know, reductions of 40% or more.I have other examples. But the main thing I want to underscore is that there are actually many solutions out there that we have not used sufficiently and would make a tremendous impact on mortality rates and general well-being and even, frankly, the economic conditions of communities. And I have enormous respect and optimism about youth in our country. Youth are fed up with the conditions that they are living in and the high rates of gun violence that they experience. I believe they will help lead us to better solutions that will lead to lower rates of gun violence.MARTÍNEZ: Daniel W. Webster is an American health policy researcher and a distinguished scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. Daniel, thanks.WEBSTER: Thank you. A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: When we talk about gun violence in America, we often use terms like epidemic. So what's the actual definition of that word? DANIEL WEBSTER: An epidemic is a rapid spread of disease to many at-risk individuals in a given population within a relatively short period of time. MARTÍNEZ: That's Daniel Webster, a health policy expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. I asked him about that idea, of framing gun violence as an illness using terms like epidemic. WEBSTER: Well, that's the classic thing from a public health textbook. But we have long been thinking about gun violence as a public health problem that has many analogies to the conditions that we deal with in public health, including infectious diseases. MARTÍNEZ: And what are those analogies? WEBSTER: Well, of course, it has impact on the kind of indicators that we think about in public health. It affects mortality risk, injury risk, mental health. But also, importantly, aside from those most basic and measurable kind of things, it is similar to other public health problems in that rates of gun violence are greatly impacted by how healthy conditions are in the places that people live and in the behaviors that they engage in. So some of the same strategies and approaches that we think about in public health to reduce substance abuse, cardiovascular disease and many other kind of conditions, we apply similar types of methodology and thinking to curtail the problem of gun violence. MARTÍNEZ: If epidemic is maybe too narrow of a word for gun violence, would it qualify, then, as a public health emergency? WEBSTER: Almost definitely it's a public health emergency. And again, just to be clear, I would consider gun violence also an epidemic. It is a leading cause of death for large segments of the population, including young people. This has been the case for subgroups of, for example, young adult individuals who are Black, for example, has long been a leading cause of death. And it also has enormous impacts beyond fatalities that really affect mental health and well-being, even for those who were not directly shot. MARTÍNEZ: What's an achievable goal for a public health intervention in gun violence? WEBSTER: So I'll start with gun policy. And the policy that we have found to have the largest impact across many forms of gun violence is purchaser licensing requirements for those who purchase firearms. We have found significant reductions, roughly around 30%, in firearm homicides and suicides. We've also seen large decreases in fatal mass shootings associated with firearm purchaser licensing. And we've even seen lower levels of gun violence involving law enforcement officers, both as victims being shot in the line of duty or shooting civilians in the line of duty. So simply, this is a policy that decreases the availability of guns in risky situations and with risky individuals. It has high public support, and it affects multiple forms of gun violence. So that, I think, is very achievable. Another kind of approach that I've studied is referred to as community violence intervention programs, intervention that involves individuals who have credibility on the streets engaging with the highest-risk individuals, promoting non-violent alternatives to responding to conflicts and provocations. We've seen in some communities, you know, reductions of 40% or more. I have other examples. But the main thing I want to underscore is that there are actually many solutions out there that we have not used sufficiently and would make a tremendous impact on mortality rates and general well-being and even, frankly, the economic conditions of communities. And I have enormous respect and optimism about youth in our country. Youth are fed up with the conditions that they are living in and the high rates of gun violence that they experience. I believe they will help lead us to better solutions that will lead to lower rates of gun violence. MARTÍNEZ: Daniel W. Webster is an American health policy researcher and a distinguished scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. Daniel, thanks. WEBSTER: Thank you. Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Juana Summers ,  Vincent Acovino ,  Christopher Intagliata A new advisory outlines how a national strategy could tackle the problem of loneliness in the United States. Getty Images hide caption A new advisory outlines how a national strategy could tackle the problem of loneliness in the United States. There is an epidemic of loneliness in the United States and lacking connection can increase the risk for premature death to levels comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, according to a new advisory from the U.S. Surgeon General. The report released on Tuesday, titled "Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation," finds that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, about half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness. And it warns that the physical consequences of poor connection can be devastating, including a 29% increased risk of heart disease; a 32% increased risk of stroke; and a 50% increased risk of developing dementia for older adults. "It's hard to put a price tag, if you will, on the amount of human suffering that people are experiencing right now," Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told All Things Considered. "In the last few decades, we've just lived through a dramatic pace of change. We move more, we change jobs more often, we are living with technology that has profoundly changed how we interact with each other and how we talk to each other." "And you can feel lonely even if you have a lot of people around you, because loneliness is about the quality of your connections." U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy says the rapid pace of life has increased the problem of loneliness. Drew Angerer/Getty Images hide caption U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy says the rapid pace of life has increased the problem of loneliness. Across age groups, people are spending less time with each other in person than two decades ago. The advisory reported that this was most pronounced in young people aged 15-24 who had 70% less social interaction with their friends. Murthy said that many young people now use social media as a replacement for in-person relationships, and this often meant lower-quality connections. "We also know that for some kids, being online has been a way to find community at a time when many of them have not been able to," he said. "What we need to protect against, though, are the elements of technology, and social media in particular, that seek to maximize the amount of time that our children are spending online at the expense of their in-person interactions." Advisories are reserved for issues deemed significant public health challenges that "need the American people's immediate attention," according to a statement from Murthy, who has spoken openly of his own experiences with loneliness in the past. In response, the advisory outlines the framework for a new national strategy. It is based on six foundational pillars, which are: Murthy said loneliness isn't a uniquely American problem, but instead a feature of modern life around the globe. Yet he noted that in the U.S. participation in community organizations — from faith groups to recreational leagues — has declined in recent decades. "So we're seeing more forces that take us away from one another and fewer of the forces that used to bring us together," he said. The advisory comes on the back of numerous studies in recent years that warn of the mental and physical dangers of loneliness. A 2022 paper from Johns Hopkins University also found socially isolated older adults had a higher chance of developing dementia than their peers. "Social connections matter for our cognitive health, and the risk of social isolation is potentially modifiable for older adults," Thomas Cudjoe, an assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins and a senior author of the study, said in a statement. Eric Liu, the CEO of Citizen University — a Seattle-based nonprofit that aims to build community and civic awareness nationwide — isn't surprised by the effect of loneliness on "the body and the body politic." A broken heart is both a physical and a social diagnosis, he told Morning Edition on Wednesday. "When you are alone and disconnected there's more stress, there's more inflammation, there's more anxiety," he said. "And that has effects not only on the body but the ways in which we see each other in community and feel connected to one another." Liu said that the longer a person is disconnected, the easier it is for them to stop believing that others have their interests in mind or that it's possible to find common cause. "So much of the challenge that we have right now is far upstream of electoral politics and policy, it is a culture problem," he added. "That's why I think one of the things that's so important about the surgeon general's report is creating a culture of connection." Murthy said loneliness can impact people in a variety of ways, so understanding the signs is the first step to addressing it. "Some people react to loneliness by withdrawing and getting quiet. Others react to loneliness by becoming irritable and angry, and they may lash out more," he said. "That's why sometimes it takes a little time to really reflect on what's happening in our life. And sometimes we need somebody else to tell us, 'Hey, you've been withdrawing more' to help us understand that we might actually be dealing with loneliness." Rachel Treisman contributed to this report. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Terry Gross The New Yorker recently published Mallon's diary excepts detailing life in Manhattan in the '80s. His new novel, Up With the Sun, is based on the life of a little-known actor who was gay and closeted. TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I am Terry Gross. Living through the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s is the subject of Thomas Mallon's diaries that were recently excerpted in The New Yorker. He was in his 30s then, living in Manhattan, watching his boyfriend, friends and fellow churchgoers get sick and die, leaving Mallon in a constant state of anxiety over if and when he'd get the death sentence.Mallon is best-known for his historical novels. His new one, "Up With The Sun," ends where the journal excerpts begin. The novel, which our book critic, Maureen Corrigan, calls dazzling, is based on the life of a pretty obscure actor named Dick Kallman, a closeted gay actor in the '50s and '60s who never quite made it. He was part of Lucille Ball's Desilu Workshop, co-starred in the Broadway musical "Seventeen," starred in a touring production of "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" and starred in a short-lived sitcom called "Hank." And his roles dried up. He went into the antiques business with Dolores Gray, who starred in several movie musicals. In 1980, Kallman and his boyfriend were murdered in their Manhattan apartment by robbers, a murder that made the tabloids.An earlier novel by Thomas Mallon, "Fellow Travelers," is about two gay men working for the State Department during the lavender scare, when the anti-communist witch hunt of the 1950s was also a witch hunt for gay people, who were driven out of their jobs. The novel has been adapted into a Showtime series scheduled to premiere later this year. Mallon has also written novels about Watergate, Nixon and the couple who shared Lincoln's box seats at the Ford Theater the night he was assassinated.Thomas Mallon, welcome to FRESH AIR. You're such a good writer.THOMAS MALLON: Thanks.GROSS: Why did you want to write about this actor Dick Kallman? I certainly had never heard of him before. I imagine most of the people in our audience have never heard of him either.MALLON: I used to watch his sitcom in 1965-66, which was the one year it was on. I was 13 years old at the time, and I desperately wanted to go to college. And...GROSS: It was called "Hank," by the way...MALLON: OK.GROSS: ...For anyone who wants to know. Yeah.MALLON: The conceit was that he played a college drop-in. He didn't have the money for tuition, but he was desperate to get an education. And so he would disguise himself as other students. And he was always one step ahead of the registrar, who was chasing him. It was sort of charming and preposterous. And I used to watch it, and he sort of stuck with me, and the program stuck with me. And lo and behold, you know, in 1980, he's murdered - long since out of show business - murdered in upper Manhattan, the east side of Manhattan. And I heard about this. And I began squirreling away clippings many years later, and I would set it aside. I really started to write the book in earnest around 2008, then set it aside for a decade to write this political trilogy set in Washington, and then went back to it and fortunately in time enough to talk to a number of people who had known him and to be able to reconstruct the story as well as I could.GROSS: By the way, "Hank" had a theme song. The sitcom "Hank" had a theme song with a lyric written by Johnny Mercer. I mean, that's pretty classy.MALLON: That was about the only really distinguished thing about the program.(LAUGHTER)GROSS: Yeah. Could you sing the lyric?MALLON: The first line of it is (singing) he's up with the sun, and he's got the college winging as he goes about another swinging day.And the conceit was that he was constantly doing odd jobs to earn money. He was raising his little sister because their parents were dead. I mean, it was kind of a comic tear-jerker in some ways, and there was a tremendous sweetness to the character as well as a lot of gumption. Kallman in real life had plenty of gumption, but, I think, very little sweetness.GROSS: I think people might have caught that first line of the lyric, he's up with the sun. That's where the title of your novel, "Up With the Sun," comes from.MALLON: Yes.GROSS: Yeah. So what kind of research did you do about what it meant to be gay and closeted on Broadway and in Hollywood? You know, one of the obvious differences is, like, on Broadway, so many men traditionally, you know, have been gay including some of the best, like, songwriters who ever wrote for Broadway musicals. In Hollywood, I think there was a big gay, closeted population, but probably not as big as on Broadway.MALLON: Well, you know, I talked to people who had known Kallman and went through any number of hundreds and hundreds of clippings and reviews and everything. And, you know, it was the time when - later in the '50s, when he was trying to get a foothold in Hollywood, he would be set up on dates, you know, by his age and dates, needless to say, with young women and who were sort of aware or not aware that they were really, you know, functioning as beards for this. The lockdown, it - you - as you say, you would think, of all places, Broadway would be a place where, to a certain extent, you could be yourself. But I don't think that was really very true.I spoke a few years ago to Rita Gardner, who was the original female lead in "The Fantasticks," which ran for decades and decades off-Broadway. And she played the part opposite Kenneth Nelson, who figures in this book. He knew Kallman. Their careers sort of dovetailed each other in some ways for a number of years. And Kenneth Nelson was much beloved by people who worked with him. And Rita told me that - you know, she says, of course, I knew Kenny was gay, and sometimes I would see him troubled or down about something. And she says, as amazing as it sounds now, you just couldn't ask. Even in the world of off-Broadway theater, it was just too hot to handle back in those days. And she was remembering this in her 80s, and she was just shaking her head over it.GROSS: Well, another thing that closeted actors on Broadway and also in Hollywood had to deal with is the gossip columnists 'cause...MALLON: Yes.GROSS: They could out you. I don't know if this is a real quote from Earl Wilson, who was a gossip columnist at The New York Post at the time. But in one of his columns, he wrote, which restaurant chain has been purging its New York branches of swishes?MALLON: That's for real. That's for real.GROSS: That's for real.MALLON: Yeah. And there would be these obliquely phrased items about people. The gossip columnist had a tremendously hard edge. I remember - I was a great reader of the newspaper from the time I was about 7 years old. And I remember writers, like Dorothy Kilgallen, writing about show business, sometimes writing about politics, too. And there was a hard edge, and if they took a dislike to somebody, they made these nasty little crusades against them. And this was the shame that could not speak its name, let alone the love that could not speak its name. But gossip columnists did find a way of getting it into the papers. For instance, here in Washington, where I live, The Washington Evening Star, a wonderful old paper - if you read it in the 1950s, the only time there's ever an overt mention of homosexuality is when somebody gets arrested.GROSS: Let's take a short break here, and then, we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Thomas Mallon. His new novel, "Up With The Sun," is based on the life of Dick Kallman a little-remembered closeted gay actor in the 1950s and '60s. The New Yorker recently published excerpts of his AIDS diaries from the 1980s. We'll talk about that soon. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.(SOUNDBITE OF WILLIE NILE SONG, "I'M ON FIRE")GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Thomas Mallon. His new novel, "Up With The Sun," is based on the life of Dick Kallman, a little-remembered closeted gay actor in the 1950s and '60s. The New Yorker recently published excerpts of the journal Mallon kept in the 1980s about living through the AIDS epidemic, watching his friends die, and wondering if he'd get a death sentence, too. The journal was published under the title "Finding My Way - And Staying Alive - During The AIDS Crisis: A Diary Of 1980s Manhattan."Thomas Mallon, your novel "Up With The Sun" ends at about the same time that your diary excerpts recently published in The New Yorker begins. And those are your diaries - excerpts of your diaries during the AIDS epidemic, the very early days of it, when you were living in Manhattan and so many people you knew had AIDS and were dying or had already died. So let's talk about those diaries. You were in your 30s in the 1980s when AIDS was first identified and then became an epidemic. Who were you then?MALLON: I was an academic who really wanted to be a writer. I taught at Vassar for about a dozen years. I started there in my late 20s. And while I was still there, I moved to New York. I couldn't take living on campus and sort of being part of the college 24/7. So I rented this ancient, little walk-up apartment right near Grand Central and began trying to extract myself from academic life. And in some ways, I was living my 20s in my 30s. I even wrote about that somewhere. I was getting some traction as a writer. I was beginning to write a lot of literary journalism. I was starting to write fiction on my own. And I was doing this in a way with very little risk in my life compared to the way most young writers in New York have to operate. I was a tenured professor at this fancy college and then, you know, saw my way out of that.But whereas there was very little risk financially for me, very little risk professionally for me, I was suddenly engulfed in risk that all of my friends were. I was - when it came to romance, I was rather a late bloomer, but not late enough that I wasn't worried that one involvement in particular that I had had would likely render me sick at some point. And we were - my friends and I, we were all beset with anxieties of one kind or another and had to make decisions and consider contingencies.I remembered, coming across something in the diary - I was writing a book about plagiarism and - but I desperately wanted to write this second novel. And I was trying to think whether I dared to start the novel. And I thought, no, if I get sick, I'll probably have two years left, and I don't want to go out of the world with the two books half-written. I'll stick with the book I'm working on now, the plagiarism book. And if I have to die, I will then at least have that book out in the world. And that was how one thought in those days - even while, at the same time, I was in love with New York, I was in love with the little bit of literary progress I was making. My friends and I were having lives. We were having romance and so forth.GROSS: What was it like rereading your diaries to edit them and then publish them? - because, like, you write historical novels and what was the present to you when you were writing those journals, that's now the past. That's now history. That's an artifact of a turning point in history. So what was it like seeing your life as history?MALLON: Strange. It provoked feelings of embarrassment - one's diaries always do that if they have any kind of, I think, authenticity to them - tremendous feelings of gratitude that I had never gotten sick and that I was here to write all the books that came in between those diaries and today. I was struck, though, by the immediacy of them. With editors at The New Yorker, there was some discussion at some point about my writing a retrospective essay about the time and simply quoting from the diaries, even quoting liberally from them, but situating them in a sort of retrospective point of view. And I argued against this because I thought if the diaries had any value at all, it was their immediacy, the sense that the person writing this did not know what was going to happen...GROSS: Right.MALLON: ...Did not know what it meant yet. And when I reread them after so many years, what struck me immediately was a kind of manic quality to them. There are entries where I am just absolutely slap-happy. You know, I'm having my first author photograph taken, or I'm going to some literary party that I never would have expected to be invited to years before. And the next day, all of that will come crashing down because there's been some terrible piece of AIDS news either in the newspapers or, you know, in my own world - somebody I knew was sick. And it seemed to me at the time - and the diaries brought this back to me - that I was living in a world where it was always going to be impossible to be happy for very long, that there would be these short bursts, but this looming, terrible destructiveness was always going to be out there.GROSS: You know, just a little stray sentence in those diaries was about having a great view of Manhattan when you dined one day at Windows on the World, which was the restaurant on top of the World Trade Center.MALLON: Yes.GROSS: And a few years later, that would be totally demolished in the terrorist attack on 9/11. What was it like for you to reread that sentence and realize this, like, little factoid tucked away in your journal was...MALLON: Yeah. Certain things...GROSS: ...Part of this...MALLON: Yeah.GROSS: ...Like, national nightmare?MALLON: Yes, these little things that jump out at you and that, you know, you never expected to see. And, of course, at the time you're writing it, you don't think that you could ever reread this and have it mean something completely different from what it appeared to mean to you as you actually wrote the sentence. There are all these things that, you know, one has forgotten. Sometimes the smallest things that you write - the smallest incidents, remarks that you heard, overheard - sometimes those are the things I found in a diary that evoke bigger things much more powerfully than if you had been writing about the big thing directly.GROSS: Yeah. During the period that your AIDS diaries cover, the period published in The New Yorker, your boyfriend at the time died of AIDS early in the epidemic. He was 31. You hadn't been seeing each other that long. Were you close enough where you felt like you were the one to take care of him?MALLON: No. I mean, I wouldn't say that. But it was a short and very rocky romance. And it, you know, had all of the difficulties that any romance can encounter. But at the end, when he was very sick throughout 1984 - and he died in October of 1984. At the very end, I became very close to his mother and close, really, to the rest of his family. And I remember the hospital and the harrowing nature of his illness that went on month after month. This was the time when if you visited somebody with AIDS in the hospital, they practically put you in a hazmat suit, you know? You were wearing masks and gloves and so forth. And nobody knew very much. And this was very early to have that. The gift, to me, was really his whole family, especially his mother, who remained my friends for decades. And I wound up having Thanksgiving every year with his mother. And I would bring my longtime partner, Bill, to New York.And, again, all of life really is a novel. You just live it instead of writing it. But it always has its odd turns and its strange narrative arcs. But that was a particularly painful time, the time that Tom was still alive and suffering. And I have not really even been able to go back to that diary. The diaries that were excerpted in The New Yorker start in 1985. They run from '85 to '88. And I'm sort of living in the aftermath of that. And I'm probably going to do a book of these diaries for my publisher, Knopf. And I'm going to have to go back to the diaries when Tom was still alive. And that's going to be a hard task for me.GROSS: Did you visit him in the hospital? And were you afraid that if you did, you would contract AIDS because, as you said, people didn't know yet how it was spread?MALLON: I don't remember that fear in the hospital. I remember the fear of - a fear that lasted for years - that I would contract it simply because of the things we had done together before he was sick. But the atmosphere in the hospital was just dreadful. And there was almost a science fiction aspect to it. One of the sort of themes or one of the plots, if you could use that word, to the diaries that were excerpted in The New Yorker - this is around 1986, '87 - was my internal drama, wondering not just whether I was going to get sick or not, but should I have the test? The test was new in those days.GROSS: Yeah, you were terrified to have the test.MALLON: I was very frightened to have the test. I did not have the test until 1991. At that point, there was really nothing they could do for you. So what was the point of knowing? You already knew how you could protect yourself from infection. You already knew how you could protect others from infection. And if you happen to have the virus, if you were sick, there was very little that they could do for you. Eventually, I mean, there was AZT was the first significant medication. But the side effects of it were absolutely horrific. And so I remember for years, I opted for not knowing.GROSS: And what changed your mind in 1991 when you got tested?MALLON: Well, I was partnered by that point. And I felt that the likelihood that I was sick was pretty small by that point. It would have manifested itself already in one way or another. So I was, you know, able to do that. But even in those days, in the early '90s, you would get tested. And you would wait for two weeks for the result, as opposed to, you know, having a pinprick of blood taken from you today and getting the results within less than a minute.GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Thomas Mallon. Excerpts of his journals from the 1980s during the AIDS epidemic were recently published in The New Yorker. His new novel is called "Up With The Sun." We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.(SOUNDBITE OF BRAD MEHLDAU'S "LIFE ON MARS?")GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Thomas Mallon. His new novel, "Up With The Sun," is based on the life of Dick Kallman, a little-remembered closeted gay actor in the 1950s and '60s. The New Yorker recently published excerpts of the journal he kept in the 1980s about living in Manhattan during the early years of the AIDS epidemic, watching his friends die and wondering if he'd get a death sentence, too. When we left off, he was explaining that, for years, he was afraid to get tested, fearing he'd be positive. But in 1991, after he had a partner, he decided to do it, and he tested negative.How did it change your life when you knew that you were negative?MALLON: It made me feel that I could keep living and keep enjoying my life. There were so many things I loved about my life. Even during the worst days of the epidemic in New York, when there was nothing to be done for anybody like Tom or so many of my friends, I absolutely loved my life. I was very driven. I was very hardworking. I was ambitious. I wanted to be a writer. I felt I was getting a late start as a writer, and suddenly things were happening. And I just remember the feeling that I'm not going to have to - maybe until I'm, you know, much older, I'm not going to have to sit down with that diary again and tote up the pros and cons of trying to write a second book while I'm writing a first one because I might not be around to finish them within a couple of years.GROSS: So you were so relieved to know that your death was not imminent. You are 71 now. Have your thoughts about aging been affected by how afraid you were that you were going to die in your 30s?MALLON: I think it would be impossible for those thoughts and feelings not to have been affected. I am so aware of how lucky I was. And, I mean, I've enjoyed rude good health for almost my whole life. I'd like that to continue for a while, but I like to think that - you know, when things fall apart that I'll be able to accept that with a certain amount of greater grace because I know that it could so easily - all of those intervening decades could so easily have been denied to me by life. And I don't know. That'll be a test of my character, I guess, when it comes.GROSS: Yeah. During the epidemic, when you were so uncertain about whether you would be dead soon or not and you didn't want to take the test to find out whether you tested positive for HIV, did you ever try to be celibate? Or, I mean, like, how afraid were you?MALLON: Very unsuccessfully.GROSS: (Laughter) Yeah, right, right, right. You know, you're Catholic, so that brings a natural amount of guilt about sex. You're gay. Add a lot more guilt to that, being Catholic. And then it's the AIDS epidemic. Add a lot of fear and maybe guilt about engaging in any kind of sexual act because, you know, there's so much uncertainty, especially before anyone really knew how to protect against AIDS or how it was spread. Can you talk about the feelings of, like, guilt or fear that you had when engaging in any kind of intimacy with another man?MALLON: I think those were always present. They went hand in hand. You thought, well, I know the score. The person I'm with knows the score. And, you know, we'll protect each other, but we can't stop living. And I saw a good friend of mine, Greg Ullmann (ph), who I saw a lot in the '80s. And I saw him last fall. We were talking about this when the diaries were about to come out, and we talked about how we did our best to go on living and to just somehow go forward and assume that things might work out right. But life's contradictions and life's ambivalences - you never get rid of them.And, you know, I was - I am a very lapsed Catholic. If I lapsed any further, I don't know what circle of hell I'd be in, but I still missed my faith. To this day, I miss my faith in that it was being gay that drove me away from the church. There was very little way in which one could reconcile those two things and be comfortable. I was also - politically was always much more conservative than my friends, particularly where foreign policy was concerned, things like that. And it was very, very difficult for me to be politically conservative. I was never a social conservative for all the obvious reasons.But like Timothy Laughlin in "Fellow Travelers," I grew up believing Catholic. I grew up very much an anti-communist. And I, as I grew older, grew through adolescence and into adulthood, I saw no reason why those three things should be incompatible. I really didn't. And yet, if you were a believer in a somewhat conservative worldview geopolitically, that was a very, very difficult political position to have when the very people you admired for their anti-communism and, you know, their stand for liberty did not extend to gay people.GROSS: Let me stop you here for a second because my question had to do with, did you try to be celibate, and we're talking about politics.MALLON: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah.GROSS: No, no, no, no, no. We're talking about politics now and how your circle of friends was not conservative, how hard it was to be conservative politically, not socially but politically. Did that interfere with your romantic life?MALLON: Oh, I can remember lots of arguments and debates, certainly. And, I mean, some of them continue to this day. And, you know, being a historical novelist, you get to revisit some of these things. And I wrote a book called "Finale," which was set during the second term of Ronald Reagan's presidency. A lot of it revolves around the famous summit at Reykjavik with Mikhail Gorbachev. And there's a character there, Anders Little - fictional character - who is engaged in national security matters and is very much a Cold Warrior of my age. But he's also coming to terms with being gay, and he is struggling with the fact that he is having to work in an administration which is not doing anything for people that he loves and people who are in trouble and people who are even facing death.And I think that that, you know, has been sort of a motif in my life. I've argued with my conservative friends that their positions on certain social issues are beyond the pale, unacceptable to me. And I've certainly argued with my gay friends that I wasn't comfortable with a one-size-fits-all politics, that my politics were a bit different from that. I was still very much Timothy Laughlin in "Fellow Travelers." You know, E.M. Forster talks in one of his essays about not liking hundred-percenters, and that's something that's always stuck with me. I think that the political divide that exists today, which I can't imagine really writing about in fiction, is made worse by the fact that everybody is so dug in that no one ever surprises anyone else with their politics. If somebody expresses their politics, you know, in personal conversation, you sort of - if they express one piece of their politics, you sort of infer the whole rest of it from what they've said. And the middle ground has just kind of disappeared beneath our feet.GROSS: I want to get back to what you experienced personally in the '80s. You know, you write in your diaries, I always fall for the truly cold, cold people, cold men because I decide their reserve and awkwardness is really bottled-up warmth that they're waiting for me to release, an act for which they'll repay me with extravagant love. I think that is a really common thing, thinking that somebody who's cold or unemotional on the surface is just, like, hiding their sensitivity that's underneath and that once you kind of connect with that sensitivity, they'll open up and be really warm and appreciate that you allowed them to do it.MALLON: I think that's one of the passages in the diary that has a certain universality to it. I mean, I think that that's a common thing among homosexuals, among heterosexuals. I think a lot of heterosexual women might recognize themselves in that passage, particularly from, you know, what's now a couple of generations ago. The complexities of love are more universal than not. And if they weren't, there wouldn't be anything like fiction. Gay people couldn't read straight novels. Straight people couldn't read gay novels. A certain degree of identification has been a part of fiction from the very beginning, from when the novel starts in the 18th century. You have to see yourself to some degree in at least some of the characters in the book. But often you see yourself in characters who are nothing like you in terms of gender, circumstance, whatever. But there's some emotional aspect of them that allows you to say, that's me as well.GROSS: Well, I think it's time to take another break. So let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Thomas Mallon. The New Yorker recently published excerpts of the journal he kept in the 1980s about living through the AIDS epidemic, watching his friends die and wondering if he'd get a death sentence, too. His latest novel is called "Up With The Sun." We'll be right back after a break. This is FRESH AIR.(SOUNDBITE OF PAQUITO D'RIVERA'S "CONTRADANZA")GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Thomas Mallon. His latest novel is called "Up With The Sun." His diaries about living through the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s were recently excerpted in The New Yorker, and his novel "Fellow Travelers" will soon be adapted into a Showtime series that's expected to premiere sometime later this year.In your journals, you refer - and, again, this is in the 1980s. You refer to the old homosexuality versus the new homosexuality. You, being in your 30s then, would have been part of the new homosexuality. What was the difference to you then?MALLON: I think, you know, and very often at that age, just as at this age, I'm talking through my hat. And, you know, in a diary, you're - every diary entry is a kind of thought experiment. You're trying things out. You're considering things. You're wondering about things. I think that passage occurs when I was briefly dating an older man, and I saw - I was seeing couples who had managed to live as couples domestically and had their own kind of somewhat sealed-off world. But they were living the way married gay people would live today.And at the time, just as I was afraid of sexual abandon, I was also afraid of domesticity. Two men keeping house together did not seem natural to me in the 1980s, and that was my blinkered self. That was my self-loathing. That was my prejudice against certain things. Now, when I look back on what I guess I'm referring to as the old homosexuality there and I'm thinking of these sort of domestic arrangements that people managed to have in the face of no liberties whatsoever, I look back on those people, and I think, that's another group of people who were much braver than I would ever have been.GROSS: Since you referred to the old and the new homosexuality, now that you are in your early 70s, do you think you're considered by younger people - by younger gay people to be part of the old homosexuality?MALLON: Sure. Yeah.GROSS: What do you see as some of the generational differences?MALLON: Well, I suppose the most striking one, of course, would be gay marriage, which didn't exist, was not remotely on the horizon, back in the 1980s. And it does exist today. And I think that gay marriage is a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful option. I'm somewhat surprised that it seems, in many ways, to be more of a replication of straight marriage than I imagined it would be. I imagined that gay marriage would be something slightly different, maybe. But that old homosexuality that I was referring to, those domestic arrangements and so forth that people had, because they were not marriage - there may have been tremendous devotion between the two people. But infidelity, to use a very old-fashioned term, was not the crisis or the catastrophe that it would be in, say, a heterosexual marriage. So there's that to consider as well, I guess.GROSS: At what point in your life did you feel like domesticity was OK? I'm making an assumption here that you live with your longtime partner.MALLON: I do. And I think it was the night very early on when Bill said to me - because I still lived like a graduate student in this little studio apartment. And I worked - talk about up with the sun, I was always up with the sun working. And I would work all day, and I would race out, you know, to the Korean grocer for takeout and bring it back and go back to my desk and whatever. And I remember one night, a few months into our being together in 1989, he said, don't you understand? I want to make a home for you. And I was absolutely thunderstruck by that. And I realized that that was not confinement. It was love. And I haven't cooked a meal in 30 years. And he'll make some very...GROSS: Because he cooks?MALLON: He makes a very good home. He meant it literally, you know, in terms of all the things that go into making a comfortable home, all of which he was - is wonderful at. But I think - you know, by that time, I was in my late 30s, getting close to 40, and that was another sea change in my life.GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you again. If you're just joining us, my guest is writer Thomas Mallon, and excerpts of his journals, his AIDS journals from the 1980s, were recently published in The New Yorker. His new novel is called "Up With The Sun." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE HADEN'S "EL CIEGO (THE BLIND)")GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Thomas Mallon. His latest novel, "Up With The Sun," is based on the life of Dick Kallman, a little-remembered closeted gay actor in the 1950s and '60s. The New Yorker recently published excerpts of the journal Mallon kept in the 1980s about living through the AIDS epidemic.In your latest novel, "Up With The Sun," one of the characters says, all my life, I've loved the past as a place that can keep you safe from the present - an inert world, sleeping and finished, that can't push you around, a place that your imagination can make as pretty as the two-dimensional flats on a Broadway set. Is that a sentiment you share? And is that one of the reasons why you write historical fiction?MALLON: Yes, I think so. I think that's me speaking through Matt, my fictional pianist in "Up With The Sun." I think that's always been a theme in my books. I wrote a novel many years ago called "Dewey Defeats Truman," which was all set during the summer and fall of 1948 in a little town in Michigan that had been Thomas E. Dewey's hometown. And there's an old man in that book named Horace Sinclair, and he expresses a lot of my preference for the past - the idea that the past is the present perfected, somehow put in amber, somehow an easier place to live in. He's the one who says, you know, some people, when they pass a house, when they're walking on the street, they wonder who lives there. And he, when he walks past the house, always wonders who used to live there.GROSS: Of course, you often write about unsafe parts of the past - you know, writing about having to be closeted if you're an actor in the '50s and '60s - well, having to be closeted kind of if you were anybody (laughter) back then. In "Fellow Travelers," you were writing about the anti-gay witch hunts of the '50s during the whole McCarthy period, when there were the anti-communist witch hunts. And in a way, like, the past is repeating again in terms of LGBTQ issues. I mean, you've got a lot of people in the Republican Party who want to overturn the legality of gay marriage. You've got these, like, new anti-drag laws. So do you feel like the - that the past is repeating itself in terms of gay rights?MALLON: I don't think there's any going back. I think we're in a long, ugly moment politically. And I would say to anybody who believes in liberty and who believes in many of the things that I always believed in in terms of a good, robust American foreign policy that tried to spread liberty through the world, tried to defend liberty through the world, what I would say to those people is get out of the Republican Party. Get out. And if you're still in it - and I can't imagine why anybody could have been in it after 2016 - get out of it. And try to form a third force, a third force in which you can stand up for people's rights, including LGBTQ rights, at home and you can continue to believe all of the things that you always believed and fought for at home and abroad. But I think unless we have a third force in the United States where there is a middle ground, we're in for terrible political times.GROSS: One of the problems I sometimes have with, like, biopics and, you know, historical movies and historical novels is that you come away from it feeling like you've really learned a lot about the past. At the same time, you don't know what's fiction and what's fact in that piece of work that you've just come away from. How do you deal with that as a writer? Like, what are your thoughts about that as somebody who's actually creating the historical fiction? Like, with Dick Kallman, it didn't - it wasn't really an issue for him because I had no idea who he was. I was just like...MALLON: Right.GROSS: I just, like, let myself enjoy the book.MALLON: I once wrote an essay called "The Historical Novelist's Burden Of Truth." And it is a very tricky business because if you are dealing with real people, you are necessarily going to ascribe to them opinions, feelings, thoughts that they may have had or may not have had. And one of the purposes of historical fiction, I think, is that it does allow a writer to speculate, to imagine. I mean, if you're writing a book about Watergate, as I did, a novel about Watergate, you operate differently from a historian. The historian would have to say, it is not implausible to think that at this moment, Mr. Nixon may have thought. If you're a historical novelist, you just have him go ahead and think it. It's the way you dramatize, the way you imagine things.But I think ultimately, it comes down to truth in labeling. A novel is a novel. I've very often had people write to me and come up to me and very kindly say, I learned so much history from your book. And I always want to say, be careful, because by the time I get to the end of one of these novels, there are certain things in them that I can't quite remember, did I make that up, or did that come from the record?GROSS: Oh, really? That's a strange feeling to have.MALLON: Fiction is fiction. I mean, there's a caveat I've applied to the prefaces or afterwards of a number of my historical novels, which is that nouns always trump adjectives, and it's important to remember in the phrase historical fiction which is which. Fiction is the noun, which means that historical novels are always fiction. Historical is the adjective. The history is weaker than the fiction. Don't trust the history. Read the fiction.GROSS: Thomas Mallon, a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much.MALLON: Same here. Thank you, Terry.GROSS: Thomas Mallon's new novel is called "Up With The Sun." Excerpts of his AIDS diaries were published in The New Yorker in December. If you'd like to catch up on FRESH AIR interviews you missed, like this week's interviews about why police violence and misconduct so often go unpunished or our episode collecting excerpts of our interviews with Jimmy Carter, check out our podcast. You'll find lots of FRESH AIR interviews. And just a reminder that you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter for free on our website, freshair.npr.org. You'll find behind-the-scenes stories from our producers, links to the week's interviews and reviews and staff recommendations. I'm always delighted to see it in my email Saturday mornings.(SOUNDBITE OF BRAD MEHLDAU'S "IF I NEEDED SOMEONE")GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering today from Al Banks. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Ann Marie Baldonado, Seth Kelley, Susan Nyakundi and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Thea Chaloner directed today's show. I'm Terry Gross.(SOUNDBITE OF BRAD MEHLDAU'S "IF I NEEDED SOMEONE") TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I am Terry Gross. Living through the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s is the subject of Thomas Mallon's diaries that were recently excerpted in The New Yorker. He was in his 30s then, living in Manhattan, watching his boyfriend, friends and fellow churchgoers get sick and die, leaving Mallon in a constant state of anxiety over if and when he'd get the death sentence. Mallon is best-known for his historical novels. His new one, "Up With The Sun," ends where the journal excerpts begin. The novel, which our book critic, Maureen Corrigan, calls dazzling, is based on the life of a pretty obscure actor named Dick Kallman, a closeted gay actor in the '50s and '60s who never quite made it. He was part of Lucille Ball's Desilu Workshop, co-starred in the Broadway musical "Seventeen," starred in a touring production of "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" and starred in a short-lived sitcom called "Hank." And his roles dried up. He went into the antiques business with Dolores Gray, who starred in several movie musicals. In 1980, Kallman and his boyfriend were murdered in their Manhattan apartment by robbers, a murder that made the tabloids. An earlier novel by Thomas Mallon, "Fellow Travelers," is about two gay men working for the State Department during the lavender scare, when the anti-communist witch hunt of the 1950s was also a witch hunt for gay people, who were driven out of their jobs. The novel has been adapted into a Showtime series scheduled to premiere later this year. Mallon has also written novels about Watergate, Nixon and the couple who shared Lincoln's box seats at the Ford Theater the night he was assassinated. Thomas Mallon, welcome to FRESH AIR. You're such a good writer. THOMAS MALLON: Thanks. GROSS: Why did you want to write about this actor Dick Kallman? I certainly had never heard of him before. I imagine most of the people in our audience have never heard of him either. MALLON: I used to watch his sitcom in 1965-66, which was the one year it was on. I was 13 years old at the time, and I desperately wanted to go to college. And... GROSS: It was called "Hank," by the way... MALLON: OK. GROSS: ...For anyone who wants to know. Yeah. MALLON: The conceit was that he played a college drop-in. He didn't have the money for tuition, but he was desperate to get an education. And so he would disguise himself as other students. And he was always one step ahead of the registrar, who was chasing him. It was sort of charming and preposterous. And I used to watch it, and he sort of stuck with me, and the program stuck with me. And lo and behold, you know, in 1980, he's murdered - long since out of show business - murdered in upper Manhattan, the east side of Manhattan. And I heard about this. And I began squirreling away clippings many years later, and I would set it aside. I really started to write the book in earnest around 2008, then set it aside for a decade to write this political trilogy set in Washington, and then went back to it and fortunately in time enough to talk to a number of people who had known him and to be able to reconstruct the story as well as I could. GROSS: By the way, "Hank" had a theme song. The sitcom "Hank" had a theme song with a lyric written by Johnny Mercer. I mean, that's pretty classy. MALLON: That was about the only really distinguished thing about the program. (LAUGHTER) GROSS: Yeah. Could you sing the lyric? MALLON: The first line of it is (singing) he's up with the sun, and he's got the college winging as he goes about another swinging day. And the conceit was that he was constantly doing odd jobs to earn money. He was raising his little sister because their parents were dead. I mean, it was kind of a comic tear-jerker in some ways, and there was a tremendous sweetness to the character as well as a lot of gumption. Kallman in real life had plenty of gumption, but, I think, very little sweetness. GROSS: I think people might have caught that first line of the lyric, he's up with the sun. That's where the title of your novel, "Up With the Sun," comes from. MALLON: Yes. GROSS: Yeah. So what kind of research did you do about what it meant to be gay and closeted on Broadway and in Hollywood? You know, one of the obvious differences is, like, on Broadway, so many men traditionally, you know, have been gay including some of the best, like, songwriters who ever wrote for Broadway musicals. In Hollywood, I think there was a big gay, closeted population, but probably not as big as on Broadway. MALLON: Well, you know, I talked to people who had known Kallman and went through any number of hundreds and hundreds of clippings and reviews and everything. And, you know, it was the time when - later in the '50s, when he was trying to get a foothold in Hollywood, he would be set up on dates, you know, by his age and dates, needless to say, with young women and who were sort of aware or not aware that they were really, you know, functioning as beards for this. The lockdown, it - you - as you say, you would think, of all places, Broadway would be a place where, to a certain extent, you could be yourself. But I don't think that was really very true. I spoke a few years ago to Rita Gardner, who was the original female lead in "The Fantasticks," which ran for decades and decades off-Broadway. And she played the part opposite Kenneth Nelson, who figures in this book. He knew Kallman. Their careers sort of dovetailed each other in some ways for a number of years. And Kenneth Nelson was much beloved by people who worked with him. And Rita told me that - you know, she says, of course, I knew Kenny was gay, and sometimes I would see him troubled or down about something. And she says, as amazing as it sounds now, you just couldn't ask. Even in the world of off-Broadway theater, it was just too hot to handle back in those days. And she was remembering this in her 80s, and she was just shaking her head over it. GROSS: Well, another thing that closeted actors on Broadway and also in Hollywood had to deal with is the gossip columnists 'cause... MALLON: Yes. GROSS: They could out you. I don't know if this is a real quote from Earl Wilson, who was a gossip columnist at The New York Post at the time. But in one of his columns, he wrote, which restaurant chain has been purging its New York branches of swishes? MALLON: That's for real. That's for real. GROSS: That's for real. MALLON: Yeah. And there would be these obliquely phrased items about people. The gossip columnist had a tremendously hard edge. I remember - I was a great reader of the newspaper from the time I was about 7 years old. And I remember writers, like Dorothy Kilgallen, writing about show business, sometimes writing about politics, too. And there was a hard edge, and if they took a dislike to somebody, they made these nasty little crusades against them. And this was the shame that could not speak its name, let alone the love that could not speak its name. But gossip columnists did find a way of getting it into the papers. For instance, here in Washington, where I live, The Washington Evening Star, a wonderful old paper - if you read it in the 1950s, the only time there's ever an overt mention of homosexuality is when somebody gets arrested. GROSS: Let's take a short break here, and then, we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Thomas Mallon. His new novel, "Up With The Sun," is based on the life of Dick Kallman a little-remembered closeted gay actor in the 1950s and '60s. The New Yorker recently published excerpts of his AIDS diaries from the 1980s. We'll talk about that soon. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR. (SOUNDBITE OF WILLIE NILE SONG, "I'M ON FIRE") GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Thomas Mallon. His new novel, "Up With The Sun," is based on the life of Dick Kallman, a little-remembered closeted gay actor in the 1950s and '60s. The New Yorker recently published excerpts of the journal Mallon kept in the 1980s about living through the AIDS epidemic, watching his friends die, and wondering if he'd get a death sentence, too. The journal was published under the title "Finding My Way - And Staying Alive - During The AIDS Crisis: A Diary Of 1980s Manhattan." Thomas Mallon, your novel "Up With The Sun" ends at about the same time that your diary excerpts recently published in The New Yorker begins. And those are your diaries - excerpts of your diaries during the AIDS epidemic, the very early days of it, when you were living in Manhattan and so many people you knew had AIDS and were dying or had already died. So let's talk about those diaries. You were in your 30s in the 1980s when AIDS was first identified and then became an epidemic. Who were you then? MALLON: I was an academic who really wanted to be a writer. I taught at Vassar for about a dozen years. I started there in my late 20s. And while I was still there, I moved to New York. I couldn't take living on campus and sort of being part of the college 24/7. So I rented this ancient, little walk-up apartment right near Grand Central and began trying to extract myself from academic life. And in some ways, I was living my 20s in my 30s. I even wrote about that somewhere. I was getting some traction as a writer. I was beginning to write a lot of literary journalism. I was starting to write fiction on my own. And I was doing this in a way with very little risk in my life compared to the way most young writers in New York have to operate. I was a tenured professor at this fancy college and then, you know, saw my way out of that. But whereas there was very little risk financially for me, very little risk professionally for me, I was suddenly engulfed in risk that all of my friends were. I was - when it came to romance, I was rather a late bloomer, but not late enough that I wasn't worried that one involvement in particular that I had had would likely render me sick at some point. And we were - my friends and I, we were all beset with anxieties of one kind or another and had to make decisions and consider contingencies. I remembered, coming across something in the diary - I was writing a book about plagiarism and - but I desperately wanted to write this second novel. And I was trying to think whether I dared to start the novel. And I thought, no, if I get sick, I'll probably have two years left, and I don't want to go out of the world with the two books half-written. I'll stick with the book I'm working on now, the plagiarism book. And if I have to die, I will then at least have that book out in the world. And that was how one thought in those days - even while, at the same time, I was in love with New York, I was in love with the little bit of literary progress I was making. My friends and I were having lives. We were having romance and so forth. GROSS: What was it like rereading your diaries to edit them and then publish them? - because, like, you write historical novels and what was the present to you when you were writing those journals, that's now the past. That's now history. That's an artifact of a turning point in history. So what was it like seeing your life as history? MALLON: Strange. It provoked feelings of embarrassment - one's diaries always do that if they have any kind of, I think, authenticity to them - tremendous feelings of gratitude that I had never gotten sick and that I was here to write all the books that came in between those diaries and today. I was struck, though, by the immediacy of them. With editors at The New Yorker, there was some discussion at some point about my writing a retrospective essay about the time and simply quoting from the diaries, even quoting liberally from them, but situating them in a sort of retrospective point of view. And I argued against this because I thought if the diaries had any value at all, it was their immediacy, the sense that the person writing this did not know what was going to happen... GROSS: Right. MALLON: ...Did not know what it meant yet. And when I reread them after so many years, what struck me immediately was a kind of manic quality to them. There are entries where I am just absolutely slap-happy. You know, I'm having my first author photograph taken, or I'm going to some literary party that I never would have expected to be invited to years before. And the next day, all of that will come crashing down because there's been some terrible piece of AIDS news either in the newspapers or, you know, in my own world - somebody I knew was sick. And it seemed to me at the time - and the diaries brought this back to me - that I was living in a world where it was always going to be impossible to be happy for very long, that there would be these short bursts, but this looming, terrible destructiveness was always going to be out there. GROSS: You know, just a little stray sentence in those diaries was about having a great view of Manhattan when you dined one day at Windows on the World, which was the restaurant on top of the World Trade Center. MALLON: Yes. GROSS: And a few years later, that would be totally demolished in the terrorist attack on 9/11. What was it like for you to reread that sentence and realize this, like, little factoid tucked away in your journal was... MALLON: Yeah. Certain things... GROSS: ...Part of this... MALLON: Yeah. GROSS: ...Like, national nightmare? MALLON: Yes, these little things that jump out at you and that, you know, you never expected to see. And, of course, at the time you're writing it, you don't think that you could ever reread this and have it mean something completely different from what it appeared to mean to you as you actually wrote the sentence. There are all these things that, you know, one has forgotten. Sometimes the smallest things that you write - the smallest incidents, remarks that you heard, overheard - sometimes those are the things I found in a diary that evoke bigger things much more powerfully than if you had been writing about the big thing directly. GROSS: Yeah. During the period that your AIDS diaries cover, the period published in The New Yorker, your boyfriend at the time died of AIDS early in the epidemic. He was 31. You hadn't been seeing each other that long. Were you close enough where you felt like you were the one to take care of him? MALLON: No. I mean, I wouldn't say that. But it was a short and very rocky romance. And it, you know, had all of the difficulties that any romance can encounter. But at the end, when he was very sick throughout 1984 - and he died in October of 1984. At the very end, I became very close to his mother and close, really, to the rest of his family. And I remember the hospital and the harrowing nature of his illness that went on month after month. This was the time when if you visited somebody with AIDS in the hospital, they practically put you in a hazmat suit, you know? You were wearing masks and gloves and so forth. And nobody knew very much. And this was very early to have that. The gift, to me, was really his whole family, especially his mother, who remained my friends for decades. And I wound up having Thanksgiving every year with his mother. And I would bring my longtime partner, Bill, to New York. And, again, all of life really is a novel. You just live it instead of writing it. But it always has its odd turns and its strange narrative arcs. But that was a particularly painful time, the time that Tom was still alive and suffering. And I have not really even been able to go back to that diary. The diaries that were excerpted in The New Yorker start in 1985. They run from '85 to '88. And I'm sort of living in the aftermath of that. And I'm probably going to do a book of these diaries for my publisher, Knopf. And I'm going to have to go back to the diaries when Tom was still alive. And that's going to be a hard task for me. GROSS: Did you visit him in the hospital? And were you afraid that if you did, you would contract AIDS because, as you said, people didn't know yet how it was spread? MALLON: I don't remember that fear in the hospital. I remember the fear of - a fear that lasted for years - that I would contract it simply because of the things we had done together before he was sick. But the atmosphere in the hospital was just dreadful. And there was almost a science fiction aspect to it. One of the sort of themes or one of the plots, if you could use that word, to the diaries that were excerpted in The New Yorker - this is around 1986, '87 - was my internal drama, wondering not just whether I was going to get sick or not, but should I have the test? The test was new in those days. GROSS: Yeah, you were terrified to have the test. MALLON: I was very frightened to have the test. I did not have the test until 1991. At that point, there was really nothing they could do for you. So what was the point of knowing? You already knew how you could protect yourself from infection. You already knew how you could protect others from infection. And if you happen to have the virus, if you were sick, there was very little that they could do for you. Eventually, I mean, there was AZT was the first significant medication. But the side effects of it were absolutely horrific. And so I remember for years, I opted for not knowing. GROSS: And what changed your mind in 1991 when you got tested? MALLON: Well, I was partnered by that point. And I felt that the likelihood that I was sick was pretty small by that point. It would have manifested itself already in one way or another. So I was, you know, able to do that. But even in those days, in the early '90s, you would get tested. And you would wait for two weeks for the result, as opposed to, you know, having a pinprick of blood taken from you today and getting the results within less than a minute. GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Thomas Mallon. Excerpts of his journals from the 1980s during the AIDS epidemic were recently published in The New Yorker. His new novel is called "Up With The Sun." We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR. (SOUNDBITE OF BRAD MEHLDAU'S "LIFE ON MARS?") GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Thomas Mallon. His new novel, "Up With The Sun," is based on the life of Dick Kallman, a little-remembered closeted gay actor in the 1950s and '60s. The New Yorker recently published excerpts of the journal he kept in the 1980s about living in Manhattan during the early years of the AIDS epidemic, watching his friends die and wondering if he'd get a death sentence, too. When we left off, he was explaining that, for years, he was afraid to get tested, fearing he'd be positive. But in 1991, after he had a partner, he decided to do it, and he tested negative. How did it change your life when you knew that you were negative? MALLON: It made me feel that I could keep living and keep enjoying my life. There were so many things I loved about my life. Even during the worst days of the epidemic in New York, when there was nothing to be done for anybody like Tom or so many of my friends, I absolutely loved my life. I was very driven. I was very hardworking. I was ambitious. I wanted to be a writer. I felt I was getting a late start as a writer, and suddenly things were happening. And I just remember the feeling that I'm not going to have to - maybe until I'm, you know, much older, I'm not going to have to sit down with that diary again and tote up the pros and cons of trying to write a second book while I'm writing a first one because I might not be around to finish them within a couple of years. GROSS: So you were so relieved to know that your death was not imminent. You are 71 now. Have your thoughts about aging been affected by how afraid you were that you were going to die in your 30s? MALLON: I think it would be impossible for those thoughts and feelings not to have been affected. I am so aware of how lucky I was. And, I mean, I've enjoyed rude good health for almost my whole life. I'd like that to continue for a while, but I like to think that - you know, when things fall apart that I'll be able to accept that with a certain amount of greater grace because I know that it could so easily - all of those intervening decades could so easily have been denied to me by life. And I don't know. That'll be a test of my character, I guess, when it comes. GROSS: Yeah. During the epidemic, when you were so uncertain about whether you would be dead soon or not and you didn't want to take the test to find out whether you tested positive for HIV, did you ever try to be celibate? Or, I mean, like, how afraid were you? MALLON: Very unsuccessfully. GROSS: (Laughter) Yeah, right, right, right. You know, you're Catholic, so that brings a natural amount of guilt about sex. You're gay. Add a lot more guilt to that, being Catholic. And then it's the AIDS epidemic. Add a lot of fear and maybe guilt about engaging in any kind of sexual act because, you know, there's so much uncertainty, especially before anyone really knew how to protect against AIDS or how it was spread. Can you talk about the feelings of, like, guilt or fear that you had when engaging in any kind of intimacy with another man? MALLON: I think those were always present. They went hand in hand. You thought, well, I know the score. The person I'm with knows the score. And, you know, we'll protect each other, but we can't stop living. And I saw a good friend of mine, Greg Ullmann (ph), who I saw a lot in the '80s. And I saw him last fall. We were talking about this when the diaries were about to come out, and we talked about how we did our best to go on living and to just somehow go forward and assume that things might work out right. But life's contradictions and life's ambivalences - you never get rid of them. And, you know, I was - I am a very lapsed Catholic. If I lapsed any further, I don't know what circle of hell I'd be in, but I still missed my faith. To this day, I miss my faith in that it was being gay that drove me away from the church. There was very little way in which one could reconcile those two things and be comfortable. I was also - politically was always much more conservative than my friends, particularly where foreign policy was concerned, things like that. And it was very, very difficult for me to be politically conservative. I was never a social conservative for all the obvious reasons. But like Timothy Laughlin in "Fellow Travelers," I grew up believing Catholic. I grew up very much an anti-communist. And I, as I grew older, grew through adolescence and into adulthood, I saw no reason why those three things should be incompatible. I really didn't. And yet, if you were a believer in a somewhat conservative worldview geopolitically, that was a very, very difficult political position to have when the very people you admired for their anti-communism and, you know, their stand for liberty did not extend to gay people. GROSS: Let me stop you here for a second because my question had to do with, did you try to be celibate, and we're talking about politics. MALLON: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. GROSS: No, no, no, no, no. We're talking about politics now and how your circle of friends was not conservative, how hard it was to be conservative politically, not socially but politically. Did that interfere with your romantic life? MALLON: Oh, I can remember lots of arguments and debates, certainly. And, I mean, some of them continue to this day. And, you know, being a historical novelist, you get to revisit some of these things. And I wrote a book called "Finale," which was set during the second term of Ronald Reagan's presidency. A lot of it revolves around the famous summit at Reykjavik with Mikhail Gorbachev. And there's a character there, Anders Little - fictional character - who is engaged in national security matters and is very much a Cold Warrior of my age. But he's also coming to terms with being gay, and he is struggling with the fact that he is having to work in an administration which is not doing anything for people that he loves and people who are in trouble and people who are even facing death. And I think that that, you know, has been sort of a motif in my life. I've argued with my conservative friends that their positions on certain social issues are beyond the pale, unacceptable to me. And I've certainly argued with my gay friends that I wasn't comfortable with a one-size-fits-all politics, that my politics were a bit different from that. I was still very much Timothy Laughlin in "Fellow Travelers." You know, E.M. Forster talks in one of his essays about not liking hundred-percenters, and that's something that's always stuck with me. I think that the political divide that exists today, which I can't imagine really writing about in fiction, is made worse by the fact that everybody is so dug in that no one ever surprises anyone else with their politics. If somebody expresses their politics, you know, in personal conversation, you sort of - if they express one piece of their politics, you sort of infer the whole rest of it from what they've said. And the middle ground has just kind of disappeared beneath our feet. GROSS: I want to get back to what you experienced personally in the '80s. You know, you write in your diaries, I always fall for the truly cold, cold people, cold men because I decide their reserve and awkwardness is really bottled-up warmth that they're waiting for me to release, an act for which they'll repay me with extravagant love. I think that is a really common thing, thinking that somebody who's cold or unemotional on the surface is just, like, hiding their sensitivity that's underneath and that once you kind of connect with that sensitivity, they'll open up and be really warm and appreciate that you allowed them to do it. MALLON: I think that's one of the passages in the diary that has a certain universality to it. I mean, I think that that's a common thing among homosexuals, among heterosexuals. I think a lot of heterosexual women might recognize themselves in that passage, particularly from, you know, what's now a couple of generations ago. The complexities of love are more universal than not. And if they weren't, there wouldn't be anything like fiction. Gay people couldn't read straight novels. Straight people couldn't read gay novels. A certain degree of identification has been a part of fiction from the very beginning, from when the novel starts in the 18th century. You have to see yourself to some degree in at least some of the characters in the book. But often you see yourself in characters who are nothing like you in terms of gender, circumstance, whatever. But there's some emotional aspect of them that allows you to say, that's me as well. GROSS: Well, I think it's time to take another break. So let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Thomas Mallon. The New Yorker recently published excerpts of the journal he kept in the 1980s about living through the AIDS epidemic, watching his friends die and wondering if he'd get a death sentence, too. His latest novel is called "Up With The Sun." We'll be right back after a break. This is FRESH AIR. (SOUNDBITE OF PAQUITO D'RIVERA'S "CONTRADANZA") GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Thomas Mallon. His latest novel is called "Up With The Sun." His diaries about living through the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s were recently excerpted in The New Yorker, and his novel "Fellow Travelers" will soon be adapted into a Showtime series that's expected to premiere sometime later this year. In your journals, you refer - and, again, this is in the 1980s. You refer to the old homosexuality versus the new homosexuality. You, being in your 30s then, would have been part of the new homosexuality. What was the difference to you then? MALLON: I think, you know, and very often at that age, just as at this age, I'm talking through my hat. And, you know, in a diary, you're - every diary entry is a kind of thought experiment. You're trying things out. You're considering things. You're wondering about things. I think that passage occurs when I was briefly dating an older man, and I saw - I was seeing couples who had managed to live as couples domestically and had their own kind of somewhat sealed-off world. But they were living the way married gay people would live today. And at the time, just as I was afraid of sexual abandon, I was also afraid of domesticity. Two men keeping house together did not seem natural to me in the 1980s, and that was my blinkered self. That was my self-loathing. That was my prejudice against certain things. Now, when I look back on what I guess I'm referring to as the old homosexuality there and I'm thinking of these sort of domestic arrangements that people managed to have in the face of no liberties whatsoever, I look back on those people, and I think, that's another group of people who were much braver than I would ever have been. GROSS: Since you referred to the old and the new homosexuality, now that you are in your early 70s, do you think you're considered by younger people - by younger gay people to be part of the old homosexuality? MALLON: Sure. Yeah. GROSS: What do you see as some of the generational differences? MALLON: Well, I suppose the most striking one, of course, would be gay marriage, which didn't exist, was not remotely on the horizon, back in the 1980s. And it does exist today. And I think that gay marriage is a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful option. I'm somewhat surprised that it seems, in many ways, to be more of a replication of straight marriage than I imagined it would be. I imagined that gay marriage would be something slightly different, maybe. But that old homosexuality that I was referring to, those domestic arrangements and so forth that people had, because they were not marriage - there may have been tremendous devotion between the two people. But infidelity, to use a very old-fashioned term, was not the crisis or the catastrophe that it would be in, say, a heterosexual marriage. So there's that to consider as well, I guess. GROSS: At what point in your life did you feel like domesticity was OK? I'm making an assumption here that you live with your longtime partner. MALLON: I do. And I think it was the night very early on when Bill said to me - because I still lived like a graduate student in this little studio apartment. And I worked - talk about up with the sun, I was always up with the sun working. And I would work all day, and I would race out, you know, to the Korean grocer for takeout and bring it back and go back to my desk and whatever. And I remember one night, a few months into our being together in 1989, he said, don't you understand? I want to make a home for you. And I was absolutely thunderstruck by that. And I realized that that was not confinement. It was love. And I haven't cooked a meal in 30 years. And he'll make some very... GROSS: Because he cooks? MALLON: He makes a very good home. He meant it literally, you know, in terms of all the things that go into making a comfortable home, all of which he was - is wonderful at. But I think - you know, by that time, I was in my late 30s, getting close to 40, and that was another sea change in my life. GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you again. If you're just joining us, my guest is writer Thomas Mallon, and excerpts of his journals, his AIDS journals from the 1980s, were recently published in The New Yorker. His new novel is called "Up With The Sun." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR. (SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE HADEN'S "EL CIEGO (THE BLIND)") GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Thomas Mallon. His latest novel, "Up With The Sun," is based on the life of Dick Kallman, a little-remembered closeted gay actor in the 1950s and '60s. The New Yorker recently published excerpts of the journal Mallon kept in the 1980s about living through the AIDS epidemic. In your latest novel, "Up With The Sun," one of the characters says, all my life, I've loved the past as a place that can keep you safe from the present - an inert world, sleeping and finished, that can't push you around, a place that your imagination can make as pretty as the two-dimensional flats on a Broadway set. Is that a sentiment you share? And is that one of the reasons why you write historical fiction? MALLON: Yes, I think so. I think that's me speaking through Matt, my fictional pianist in "Up With The Sun." I think that's always been a theme in my books. I wrote a novel many years ago called "Dewey Defeats Truman," which was all set during the summer and fall of 1948 in a little town in Michigan that had been Thomas E. Dewey's hometown. And there's an old man in that book named Horace Sinclair, and he expresses a lot of my preference for the past - the idea that the past is the present perfected, somehow put in amber, somehow an easier place to live in. He's the one who says, you know, some people, when they pass a house, when they're walking on the street, they wonder who lives there. And he, when he walks past the house, always wonders who used to live there. GROSS: Of course, you often write about unsafe parts of the past - you know, writing about having to be closeted if you're an actor in the '50s and '60s - well, having to be closeted kind of if you were anybody (laughter) back then. In "Fellow Travelers," you were writing about the anti-gay witch hunts of the '50s during the whole McCarthy period, when there were the anti-communist witch hunts. And in a way, like, the past is repeating again in terms of LGBTQ issues. I mean, you've got a lot of people in the Republican Party who want to overturn the legality of gay marriage. You've got these, like, new anti-drag laws. So do you feel like the - that the past is repeating itself in terms of gay rights? MALLON: I don't think there's any going back. I think we're in a long, ugly moment politically. And I would say to anybody who believes in liberty and who believes in many of the things that I always believed in in terms of a good, robust American foreign policy that tried to spread liberty through the world, tried to defend liberty through the world, what I would say to those people is get out of the Republican Party. Get out. And if you're still in it - and I can't imagine why anybody could have been in it after 2016 - get out of it. And try to form a third force, a third force in which you can stand up for people's rights, including LGBTQ rights, at home and you can continue to believe all of the things that you always believed and fought for at home and abroad. But I think unless we have a third force in the United States where there is a middle ground, we're in for terrible political times. GROSS: One of the problems I sometimes have with, like, biopics and, you know, historical movies and historical novels is that you come away from it feeling like you've really learned a lot about the past. At the same time, you don't know what's fiction and what's fact in that piece of work that you've just come away from. How do you deal with that as a writer? Like, what are your thoughts about that as somebody who's actually creating the historical fiction? Like, with Dick Kallman, it didn't - it wasn't really an issue for him because I had no idea who he was. I was just like... MALLON: Right. GROSS: I just, like, let myself enjoy the book. MALLON: I once wrote an essay called "The Historical Novelist's Burden Of Truth." And it is a very tricky business because if you are dealing with real people, you are necessarily going to ascribe to them opinions, feelings, thoughts that they may have had or may not have had. And one of the purposes of historical fiction, I think, is that it does allow a writer to speculate, to imagine. I mean, if you're writing a book about Watergate, as I did, a novel about Watergate, you operate differently from a historian. The historian would have to say, it is not implausible to think that at this moment, Mr. Nixon may have thought. If you're a historical novelist, you just have him go ahead and think it. It's the way you dramatize, the way you imagine things. But I think ultimately, it comes down to truth in labeling. A novel is a novel. I've very often had people write to me and come up to me and very kindly say, I learned so much history from your book. And I always want to say, be careful, because by the time I get to the end of one of these novels, there are certain things in them that I can't quite remember, did I make that up, or did that come from the record? GROSS: Oh, really? That's a strange feeling to have. MALLON: Fiction is fiction. I mean, there's a caveat I've applied to the prefaces or afterwards of a number of my historical novels, which is that nouns always trump adjectives, and it's important to remember in the phrase historical fiction which is which. Fiction is the noun, which means that historical novels are always fiction. Historical is the adjective. The history is weaker than the fiction. Don't trust the history. Read the fiction. GROSS: Thomas Mallon, a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much. MALLON: Same here. Thank you, Terry. GROSS: Thomas Mallon's new novel is called "Up With The Sun." Excerpts of his AIDS diaries were published in The New Yorker in December. If you'd like to catch up on FRESH AIR interviews you missed, like this week's interviews about why police violence and misconduct so often go unpunished or our episode collecting excerpts of our interviews with Jimmy Carter, check out our podcast. You'll find lots of FRESH AIR interviews. And just a reminder that you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter for free on our website, freshair.npr.org. You'll find behind-the-scenes stories from our producers, links to the week's interviews and reviews and staff recommendations. I'm always delighted to see it in my email Saturday mornings. (SOUNDBITE OF BRAD MEHLDAU'S "IF I NEEDED SOMEONE") GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering today from Al Banks. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Ann Marie Baldonado, Seth Kelley, Susan Nyakundi and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Thea Chaloner directed today's show. I'm Terry Gross. (SOUNDBITE OF BRAD MEHLDAU'S "IF I NEEDED SOMEONE") Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Brian Mann As President Biden gives his State of the Union address, his administration is struggling to stem a devastating wave of fentanyl deaths. Here's how the opioid crisis has evolved in deadly ways. ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: One of President Biden's guests at tonight's State of the Union address will be a father from New Hampshire who lost his daughter to a fentanyl overdose. Biden addresses the nation as the opioid epidemic has evolved into a far more deadly public health crisis. NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann looks at how we got here and what might come next.BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: One thing everyone agrees on - the soaring death toll from the opioid fentanyl crisis is shattering families, scarring whole communities. Brandon Dunn from Texas lost his 15-year-old son, Noah, to a fentanyl overdose last summer.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)BRANDON DUNN: He was murdered by a drug dealer selling counterfeit Percocet pills. Noah was the third victim in less than two months in Hays County from illicit fentanyl.MANN: Dunn testified before the House Judiciary Committee last week. The U.S. has really been navigating two public health crises at the same time - the COVID pandemic and an explosion of drug deaths linked to fentanyl. Dr. Rahul Gupta heads the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.RAHUL GUPTA: Our nation is facing 108,000 overdose deaths in just 12 months. That's one life lost every five minutes around the clock. We're living in historic times. Our North Star is to save lives.MANN: The Biden administration has focused its response on health care, trying to get more addiction treatment to more people, while also scrambling to make a medication that reverses opioid overdoses, called Naloxone or Narcan, more widely available. Gupta says these strategies are helping.GUPTA: After more than 35% increase in overdose deaths during the first 18 months of the pandemic, the more recent total overdose death counts have remained largely unchanged.MANN: So the overdose epidemic may be slowing just a bit, but researchers still say the U.S. is on track to lose another 1.2 million lives to opioid overdoses by the end of this decade. The fentanyl that's killing so many people is flowing into the U.S. from Mexico. The Drug Enforcement Administration says the leaders of drug cartels have decided fentanyl is a moneymaker - cheap to make, easy to smuggle through official ports of entry. And the cartels simply don't care if it kills a lot of Americans.DAVID TRONE: We're not winning. We're losing the battle.MANN: Congressman David Trone, a Democrat from Maryland, says fentanyl smuggling can't be seriously curtailed with anything short of a large U.S. military presence inside Mexico, which he says is unrealistic.TRONE: My belief is there's absolutely no way to stop it. If we could, you know, do major raids in Mexico with our military, it's not our country. It's their country. They've chosen not to go after the drug traffickers.MANN: This is why the Biden administration is focusing mostly on health care. There's a growing conviction among Democrats and many drug policy experts that illicit fentanyl is now a permanent fixture on American streets. But many Republicans are pushing back, arguing more can be done to secure the border and often falsely linking fentanyl with undocumented migrants. Congressman Chip Roy from Texas spoke at last week's judiciary hearing.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)CHIP ROY: The overwhelming flood at our borders distracting Border Patrol from being able to carry out their duty to stop the flow between the ports of entry or do inspections at the ports of entry is resulting in more fentanyl pouring into our communities.MANN: But Republicans haven't suggested specific policy ideas or strategies that might seriously slow fentanyl trafficking. So as President Biden speaks tonight, fentanyl has joined the COVID pandemic as a public health crisis that's also a fault line in America's political divide. Brian Mann, NPR News. ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: One of President Biden's guests at tonight's State of the Union address will be a father from New Hampshire who lost his daughter to a fentanyl overdose. Biden addresses the nation as the opioid epidemic has evolved into a far more deadly public health crisis. NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann looks at how we got here and what might come next. BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: One thing everyone agrees on - the soaring death toll from the opioid fentanyl crisis is shattering families, scarring whole communities. Brandon Dunn from Texas lost his 15-year-old son, Noah, to a fentanyl overdose last summer. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) BRANDON DUNN: He was murdered by a drug dealer selling counterfeit Percocet pills. Noah was the third victim in less than two months in Hays County from illicit fentanyl. MANN: Dunn testified before the House Judiciary Committee last week. The U.S. has really been navigating two public health crises at the same time - the COVID pandemic and an explosion of drug deaths linked to fentanyl. Dr. Rahul Gupta heads the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. RAHUL GUPTA: Our nation is facing 108,000 overdose deaths in just 12 months. That's one life lost every five minutes around the clock. We're living in historic times. Our North Star is to save lives. MANN: The Biden administration has focused its response on health care, trying to get more addiction treatment to more people, while also scrambling to make a medication that reverses opioid overdoses, called Naloxone or Narcan, more widely available. Gupta says these strategies are helping. GUPTA: After more than 35% increase in overdose deaths during the first 18 months of the pandemic, the more recent total overdose death counts have remained largely unchanged. MANN: So the overdose epidemic may be slowing just a bit, but researchers still say the U.S. is on track to lose another 1.2 million lives to opioid overdoses by the end of this decade. The fentanyl that's killing so many people is flowing into the U.S. from Mexico. The Drug Enforcement Administration says the leaders of drug cartels have decided fentanyl is a moneymaker - cheap to make, easy to smuggle through official ports of entry. And the cartels simply don't care if it kills a lot of Americans. DAVID TRONE: We're not winning. We're losing the battle. MANN: Congressman David Trone, a Democrat from Maryland, says fentanyl smuggling can't be seriously curtailed with anything short of a large U.S. military presence inside Mexico, which he says is unrealistic. TRONE: My belief is there's absolutely no way to stop it. If we could, you know, do major raids in Mexico with our military, it's not our country. It's their country. They've chosen not to go after the drug traffickers. MANN: This is why the Biden administration is focusing mostly on health care. There's a growing conviction among Democrats and many drug policy experts that illicit fentanyl is now a permanent fixture on American streets. But many Republicans are pushing back, arguing more can be done to secure the border and often falsely linking fentanyl with undocumented migrants. Congressman Chip Roy from Texas spoke at last week's judiciary hearing. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) CHIP ROY: The overwhelming flood at our borders distracting Border Patrol from being able to carry out their duty to stop the flow between the ports of entry or do inspections at the ports of entry is resulting in more fentanyl pouring into our communities. MANN: But Republicans haven't suggested specific policy ideas or strategies that might seriously slow fentanyl trafficking. So as President Biden speaks tonight, fentanyl has joined the COVID pandemic as a public health crisis that's also a fault line in America's political divide. Brian Mann, NPR News. Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Advertisement <iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/hereandnow/2023/01/31/gun-violence-surgeon-general"></iframe> Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has long called gun violence in America an epidemic. He's pushing for more research into gun violence and what the government can do to prevent it. Murthy explains the public health approach to addressing gun violence in light of recent mass shootings in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay. Here & Now's Scott Tong talks with Murthy. This segment aired on January 31, 2023. Advertisement

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Advertisement <iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/12/07/opioid-epidemic-congress"></iframe> More than 107,000 Americans died of an opioid overdose in 2021, but advocates say Congress hasn't done enough to address the crisis when lives are on the line. Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes speaks with STAT's Lev Facher about it. This segment aired on December 7, 2022. Advertisement

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Franco Ordoñez Second gentleman Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Harris, delivers remarks during a roundtable about the rise of antisemitism. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption Second gentleman Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Harris, delivers remarks during a roundtable about the rise of antisemitism. The second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, hosted a roundtable at the White House Wednesday on the rise of antisemitism in the United States, saying there is an "epidemic of hate facing our country." "Words matter," Emhoff said. "People are no longer saying the quiet parts out loud, they are screaming them." The husband of Vice President Harris was joined by a dozen leaders from the Jewish community, including representatives of Hillel, the Anti-Defamation League and Orthodox Union. The meeting comes amid a surge of anti-Jewish comments and actions from prominent people. The rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler, among other remarks; and former President Donald Trump recently had dinner with Ye and Holocaust-denier Nick Fuentes. Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, Biden's special envoy who monitors antisemitism around the world, told the roundtable that many people have not taken antisemitism seriously enough. "For too long, Jew-hatred has been belittled or discounted because Jews have erroneously been considered white and privileged. This is a very real threat to Jews, and that alone would make it worth fighting with all our soul and with all our might," Lipstadt said. The White House asked participants for their ideas on how the administration could address the rising tide of antisemitism at home — insights that were shared during a private portion of the meeting closed to reporters. Wednesday's meeting was the first high-profile policy issue that Emhoff — the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president — has led at the White House. "We cannot normalize this," Emhoff said. "We all have an obligation to condemn these vile acts. We must not stay silent. There is no either/or. There are no two sides. Everyone must be against this." He talked about growing up in Brooklyn and New Jersey in a typical Jewish family, going to synagogue and celebrating his bar mitzvah. "What's happening now is just it's visceral, it's real. And that's why this is so personal to me," he said. He said one of the reasons he went on to become a lawyer was to fight inequality. The Anti-Defamation League, which tracks antisemitism, has reported more anti-Jewish attacks last year than it has in any year since it started tracking in the 1970s. Jewish people are very concerned, said Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the group. "I don't think it's an understatement to assert that we are reaching a point where this is becoming a national crisis," Greenblatt said. "We have celebrities repeating antisemitic tropes. We have the former president breaking bread with bigots, including white supremacists. We have athletes normalizing Holocaust denialism." President Biden raised his own concerns on Twitter last week when he called out "political leaders" for not strongly denouncing antisemitism. "I just want to make a few things clear: The Holocaust happened. Hitler was a demonic figure. And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides. Silence is complicity," the president wrote. I just want to make a few things clear: The Holocaust happened. Hitler was a demonic figure. And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides. Silence is complicity. In the past, politicians have raised concerns about giving extremists more oxygen by paying attention to their views, but leaders say it's a different time. Ian Russell, a Democratic strategist, says that was a view before the election of Trump, whose blunt rhetoric and aversion to political correctness angered detractors and fueled supporters. "There was a unspoken tacit understanding between the two major parties that there were some things you just didn't say," said Russell, a former deputy executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "Some dog whistles you didn't send and some things we just kept out of mainstream political dialogue in the United States because we all believe in never again. Instead, Trump said the quiet part out loud. He turned the dog whistle into a megaphone." But this type of talk is now part of the mainstream political dialogue. He said the White House is right to call it out. Social media has helped normalize hate speech, said Rabbi Noah Farkas, president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, describing the surge as "open talk of maybe what was always said in private, but now is being said in public." "Someone once told me you're never weird online," he told NPR. "You'll always find, 'your people.' And while that might be true for people who love to roller skate or people who love kittens, it's also true for people who hold the deeply hateful feelings, thoughts and actions in their hearts. And the truth is, is that social media thrives on these kinds of viral, emotional in-group feelings." It's not just Democrats who are concerned, though some Republicans have been careful not to attack Trump directly. A number of Republicans, including Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, Tim Scott of South Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma, signed onto a bipartisan letter, led by Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-N.V., calling on Biden to develop a national strategy against antisemitism. "Rising antisemitism puts Jews both in the United States and around the world at risk," the lawmakers wrote. "Antisemitic voices, inciting hateful and violent action, are finding new audiences, with anti-Jewish conspiracies gaining traction across the globe and through social media." Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Advertisement <iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/11/18/rebroadcast-an-invisible-epidemic-survivors-of-domestic-violence-on-living-with-traumatic-brain-injury"></iframe> Sign up for the On Point newsletter here.  This rebroadcast originally aired on January 20, 2022.  Editor's Note: If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact help. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800.799.SAFE (7233), or visit https://www.thehotline.org. The suffering caused by domestic violence is emotional, spiritual and physical. But there's one aspect of that suffering that is almost invisible. "When you think about domestic violence and brain injury, almost everyone I talked to was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that totally makes sense. How had we not thought about that before?’ But we really have not made that connection," licensed social worker Rachel Ramirez says. And yet millions of survivors have been living with the impacts of these brain injuries, sometimes for decades. "Problems with balance, problems with vision, sensory problems, seizures, headaches," Ramirez says. So why is there so little research, and awareness? "There is no surge here. This has been here forever. It was here in the past. It's here now, and it's going to be here in the future," neuroscientist Eve Valera says. "It's not going to go away." Today, On Point: Survivors of domestic violence on living with traumatic brain injury. LISTEN: In this 'First Person' diary we hear from Freya Doe about her own journey in discovering her traumatic brain injury. In this web extra, Paula Walters shares how she discovered her brain injury. Find the web extra here. Eve Valera, PhD, neuroscientist with more than 20 years of experience researching traumatic brain injury resulting from intimate partner violence. Associate professor at Harvard Medical School and research scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital. (@EveValera2) Rachel Ramirez, licensed social worker. Founder and director of the Center on Partner-Inflicted Brain Injury, a project run by the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. Co-author of “Trauma-Informed Approaches." (@OhioDVN) Freya Doe, a domestic violence survivor. MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: Today, we're going to talk about a hidden long-term consequence of domestic violence. As such, we will be hearing stories from survivors. So, a warning to listeners. Some of these stories contain explicit details of physical abuse. Freya Doe shared her story with us and the abuse she suffered from the very beginning of her first marriage when she was just 18 years old. FREYA DOE: In the very beginning, I thought I was happy. I thought I was getting the things that I wanted and needed emotionally. Looking back, I wasn't happy. I was always in emotional turmoil, to be quite honest. There was a lot of tears. There was a lot of crying. But he was very good at convincing me that I was happy. And that he was the one for me. And again, it wasn't until I was much older that I looked back and realized that I was not content. And what was happening was not love. It was obsession. It was manipulation. And in a lot of ways, it was torture. I was not allowed to leave the house. I had one friend that was his friend's wife, who I was allowed to hang out with. I wasn't allowed to get a job. And as time progressed, he got more and more frustrated with things at work. He was in the military, so he couldn’t get upset with his sergeant. So he would bring that anger home with him, and lash out at me. Anywhere from walking in the door and flinging his keys at my head, to grabbing me and slamming my head against the wall. If I said, how was your day? I might get punched. It was a constant situation of not necessarily knowing who was going to walk through that door. If he had a good day, things would be OK. If he had a bad day ... anything goes. There was a day when he had been drinking in the morning, and I had gone out and done laundry and I brought it home. And he was upset about something that someone had said to him, and got into a fight with me. And punched me in the face first and then picked me up and threw me off a porch. And then proceeded to jump on top of me, and repeatedly slammed my head into the ground and punched me in the face. Eventually, I woke up on the floor. And then he just stopped dead and looked at me and said, ‘What's wrong with you?’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘Your eyes.’ And he stood me up, and I went over to the dresser and I looked and the blood vessels in my eyes were starting to burst. That convinced him to allow me to call 9-1-1. But he kept saying, ‘I don't want to get in trouble.’ ‘I don't want to get in trouble. If you call 9-1-1, they'll find out what I did.' And I said, ‘Listen, I will just tell them that I fell off the porch, that I was dizzy and slammed the door into my face. It'll be OK. Just just let me call them, I need to go to the hospital.’ And they came. They got me under the backboard. They put the neck brace on. They got me in the stretcher. I'm completely tied down. And the guy in the ambulance gets in and he's sitting next to me, and my husband is standing on the end of the ambulance, looking down at me, as this guy says, ‘Did your husband do this to you?’ And I just shook my head as much as I could, which was not much. And, ‘No, no. Of course not. He would never do something like that to me. He loves me. He would never. He would never hurt me.’ They did 22 X-rays of my head, neck, back and chest. And I was in the hospital for five days. And a neurologist came in to see me, and he said, ‘Well, looks like, you know, you've got a concussion.’ And he said, ‘You know, you're probably going to have some light sensitivity for a while and you'll have some migraines, maybe. But the blood will drain out of your eyes and you know, everything will go back to normal.’ I just thought, 'OK, well, you know, by the time the blood drains out of my eyes, the migraine should probably go away and light sensitivity will probably go away.' And the funny thing is, is that neither has ever gone away. And it wasn't until about 15 years later that I started having some cognitive issues where I would be talking to somebody and all of a sudden in the middle of conversation, I would just kind of stop dead and my eyes would look around. Because I could not for the life of me, remember what it was that I was talking about. I could be in mid-sentence and just all of a sudden, it's gone. Everything I was just thinking is just out of my head, and I started thinking that I was getting early onset Alzheimer's, or some kind of dementia or something to that effect. I chose at that point in time, from fear, to basically ignore that and just put it out of my head. Tell myself, it's just something that happens to people. And then I started forgetting words. Like I knew what I wanted to say, and I could describe what I wanted to say, but the actual word that I wanted to use, I could not find. And every time that I would forget a word or I'd forget what I was talking about, or I wouldn't remember somebody's name that I had known for forever. That stress would like spike. And I had also developed a lot of anxiety. I started having panic attacks and things like that, that's how stressed this whole thing had gotten me. It didn't really dawn on me that I was still having these symptoms from that particular event. It never went through my mind. 'It didn't really dawn on me that I was still having these symptoms from that particular event. It never went through my mind.' CHAKRABARTI: Freya is a pseudonym. We are not disclosing her name or location in order to protect her safety. There is much more to her story, which we will hear later in the show. As you heard Freya describe, though, she was clearly suffering from repeated traumatic brain injury due to the violence she suffered by the hand of her first husband. Well, Eve Valera joins us now. She's an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and a neuroscientist who spent more than 20 years researching the prevalence of traumatic brain injury resulting from, excuse me, intimate partner violence. Professor Valera, welcome to On Point. EVE VALERA: Thank you, Meghna. So nice to be here. And I'm very appreciative of the opportunity to talk about this issue. CHAKRABARTI: Can I just first ask you, can you briefly describe to us how many women survivors there may be in the United States like Freya? VALERA: Well in my work, if you want to extrapolate from that, in the study found that about 74% women sustained at least one traumatic brain injury from the partner, and just over 50% sustained repetitive brain injuries from their partners. And so to put that in perspective, that could be, potentially, if this is extrapolating from my data, which is not epidemiological, but nonetheless an extrapolation. Over 31 million women might be walking around with brain injury from their partners. And 24 million women, and this is in the U.S. alone, walking around with repetitive brain injuries from their partners. If we want to compare that to sports, so you say, what does that really mean? Or other situations in which we know that there's recognized, let's just say, brain injuries. Annual estimates for servicemen and women might be around 18,000. And for the National Football League of the United States, that would be around 300 or 400 a year. Annual estimates for women could be as high as 1.6 million. So from my estimates, and again, these could be high because we don't have great epidemiological data. But even if you were to slash that considerably, there's really no comparison in terms of the number of women who I think have repetitive brain injuries and the number of men, largely, who are being studied in athletics or the military. CHAKRABARTI: Can you tell us the story of where you were when you first started trying to put two and two together about TBI and survivors of domestic violence. VALERA: Absolutely. I was actually in graduate school and I was doing volunteer work in a women's shelter. That was part of my interest. And I was also learning about neuropsychology, which looks at the effects of things like brain injuries in people. And so as I'm doing the work in the shelter, I hear these stories ... about women having their heads slammed against floors and walls, being thrown down stairs, having heads smashed against the car window. And I said, my gosh, these women are certainly sustaining brain injuries. And from what I was learning in my graduate work, it was clear that brain injuries are related to cognitive functioning, emotional functioning, behavioral problems like headaches, etc. And the women at the shelter were also reporting symptoms like that. So I looked and I said, okay, what do we know about this? This is crazy. We have to figure this out. And I do a search. I go to the library. It wasn't a single article. Absolutely nothing. And this is in the '90s. There was not one article that came up ... no matter what type of search words I used. It was clear that brain injuries are related to cognitive functioning, emotional functioning, behavioral problems. CHAKRABARTI: Nothing. VALERA: Exactly. CHAKRABARTI: Today, we're talking about what could be considered a hidden epidemic of traumatic brain injury among survivors of domestic violence. Potentially tens of millions of people in this country suffering traumatic brain injury due to violence received by the hands of their intimate partners. I'm joined today by Amy Valera. She's a neuroscientist who spent more than 20 years researching TBI and intimate partner violence. I'd like to now bring in Rachel Ramirez into the conversation. She's with us from Columbus, Ohio. And she's a licensed social worker and founder-director of the Center on Partner Inflicted Brain Injury. It's a project run by the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. Rachel Ramirez, welcome to you. RACHEL RAMIREZ: Thank you so much for having me. I've been waiting to talk about this with an audience like yours for a long time. So we really appreciate you bringing the importance and the attention to this issue that it deserves. CHAKRABARTI: You've done surveys, Rachel, among survivors and health care providers about what they know regarding the possibility of head trauma and TBI and domestic violence. What have you found about how much is known? RAMIREZ: Well, just to give you a little bit of background, I work for the statewide coalition on domestic violence. We have 75 local domestic violence programs that provide services to over 100,000 individuals in Ohio. And one of the roles of our work at the coalition, of which I've been at for 15 years, is really preparing domestic violence programs to provide the best service possible to survivors who are experiencing abuse. And we were given a grant in 2016 to look at increasing access to domestic violence services. And I got very, very lucky that we had written in the Ohio State University as an evaluation partner on that grant. After the grant was awarded, I sat down with Dr. Julianna Nemeth at the College of Public Health at Ohio State. And it became very clear that we had so much more that we needed to learn about this issue, that we wanted to take a research route into this. So we went and we talked to five local domestic violence programs, members of ours, and also talked to survivors who were accessing those services in 2017. When we talked to survivors and we asked, have you been hit in the head, or hurt in the head? 86% of survivors said yes. With half of survivors saying, I couldn't even tell you how many times I've been hit or hurt in the head. And 83% of survivors had been choked or strangled, which is another cause of brain injury, with about a fifth of them saying that they had been choked or strangled too many times to count. And over 70% saying that they had been strangled a few times, at least a few times. 83% of survivors had been choked or strangled, which is another cause of brain injury. CHAKRABARTI: And so can I just jump in here for a quick second? I expect someone who's going through that kind of abuse and trauma to think about these things. But when you ask them later on in that 2017 survey, did they say if they had ever wondered if they had suffered some kind of brain injury from that abuse? RAMIREZ: Hardly anybody said that. And all of these interviews were done in person, on site, face to face interviews. And I think even through the conversation of having it with survivors, even though survivors had this extensive history of head trauma, they had never thought about it in the context of a concussion, never thought about it in context of a brain injury. And that being the source of some of their challenges and some of their struggles. CHAKRABARTI: And then what about the health care providers that you talked to as well? RAMIREZ: The service providers that we talked to were mostly individuals who are working with domestic violence programs. And we asked them questions about how much do you know about brain injury? Have you ever learned anything about brain injury? What have been your experiences working with survivors, with brain injuries? And it was amazing how it was almost like a blank stare that we got back from many domestic violence service providers. ... But then even a few minutes into the group, or 15 minutes, 30 minutes later, people would say, well, I remember this survivor who had told me about head trauma and was having this and this challenge and struggle. Maybe that was a brain injury. Or remember this survivor who had struggles after experiencing strangulation, and maybe that was a brain injury. It was a framework that was really just being introduced to everybody. But it was something that everyone was like, Oh, my gosh, this makes so much sense. CHAKRABARTI: Professor Valera, you told us a few minutes ago that you had first started thinking about this in the late '90s. And, you know, Rachel's been working on this for a long time, too, Rachel just said that this survey that she's talking about was done in 2017. Now, well before 2017, we as a nation were talking about head injuries and traumatic brain injuries in athletes. We had football players sitting there telling us about how their lives were transformed by all the hits they took to the head, even with their helmets. Military, as you had mentioned earlier, with concussions and head injuries from war. And yet, I mean, it's shocking to hear that it seemed like such a light bulb moment ... when asked among ... domestic violence survivors. ... How is it possible that it went so long, even as you and Rachel and others have been trying to expand awareness about this? VALERA: I will say that there's no good reason for it. Honestly, there's no good reason. But I mean, there's a lot of potential reasons we could hypothesize about. I mean, in truth, it's a male dominated society and men get studied more than women. If we're going to talk about understanding brain injuries, for example, in research, we know that men are overwhelmingly studied, whether you're studying humans or animals. It's a male dominated society and men get studied more than women. And they had to actually put out an initiative to say, hey, we have to study more females. This has to be more of an even thing, in the National Institutes of Health, which provides a lot of grant funding. And so it was recognized that females weren't even really being studied the way they should. So most of what we know about brain injury is based on men. And what happens, I think, is we end up learning or studying or focusing on things that are, quote-unquote, important to us or important to society. And what's important to society? Well, of course, you know, the men and women who serve in the military are important to society. And that's absolutely true. I mean, we value those people. And also for a lot of people, football is important to society. I mean, of course, we watch these people on prime time, you know, smash themselves, you know, repeatedly in a game of football every Sunday or Thursday or Monday or whatever. And the NFL, the National Football League is a huge industry. So, of course, that's important. So when something comes out in one of those arenas that says this is really important and these people may be sustaining brain injuries, then people pay attention. But when a paper gets written on arguably a marginalized section of the population because people say, oh, those are just, you know, women who experience partner violence, those are just kind of those women over there. They're not that important. Well, they could just leave if they want to, or that's a private family matter. And then it's very stigmatizing, too. So we don't want to talk about it in that regard. So basically, we know gender-based violence, it disproportionately affects women, Native Americans, LGBTQ communities and underserved communities. So in my opinion, it's largely driven by the fact that this just isn't deemed as important. So there haven't been the resources to study it. CHAKRABARTI: ... Rachel, let me turn back to you. And before I fully do, I'll just throw this in. If there's anyone from the NFL listening who wants to use their gigantic megaphone to draw attention to the hidden epidemic of domestic violence survivors also suffering from traumatic brain injury. Please do. But, you know, in thinking about the comparison of the trauma that athletes or soldiers go through, they now have protocols, though, right? Like every time you get hit in the head or experienced some kind of potentially concussive events, you get sidelined and examined or you get taken off active duty, etc. There are protocols in place, but ... for survivors of domestic violence, A, they may never get medical care in the wake of the latest attack on them. And B, if they do, I'm not sure there are any protocols in place right now to ask about traumatic brain injury, and see there's no sideline for them. They have to continue on in their lives. RAMIREZ: Yeah. It's a lot, isn't it? You know, I think that that was something that was so interesting. One of the really important collaborations we've tried to do is help bring people who do brain injury work and people who do domestic violence work together to talk about this issue. But they are fields that have operated in very, very separate orbits and very, very separate spheres. And when you see, and when we think even about some of the identification protocols we have for veterans and athletes, a lot of those depend on bystanders or training parents, training coaches, training teachers to recognize signs. There aren't any bystanders in domestic violence. There are very few individuals who are assaulted in the head or choked or strangled in front of somebody. So there's nobody to stop the clock, nobody to check and make sure that you're doing okay. I mean, we just heard Freya's story about her journey just to even get someone to look at her. And then you see protocols that see things like avoid stress. And it's just totally unrealistic for the situation of domestic violence survivors, which is why talking about this in forums and in places like this is so important, because there's no kind of external group of people that we can train that can go in and, you know, kind of be there watching and alert for a possible brain injury. CHAKRABARTI: When someone suffers from a brain injury, what are the treatments that are in order to recover from it? I mean, reduction of mental load, things like that. And what is that supposed to look like? Eve, let me turn to you on that first. VALERA: We don't have some gold standard medicine or anything like that we can give people when they have a brain injury. So it's not something as simple as that. But just as we've seen in terms of what happens. So, for example, in athletics, you hit the nail on the head. There's a reduction of mental load, a physical load, etc. And there's a knowledge that you've sustained this brain injury. And if you keep pushing yourself and if you currently have what we call post concussive symptoms, those symptoms that may occur after brain injury, which may include headache, dizziness, fatigue, depression, etc. If you have those symptoms and you keep pushing yourself, you're much less likely to recover from them. It's going to take longer to recover than if you dial everything back. And then gradually resume your regular activities, once you feel like you can, and you don't have those symptoms return. And avoiding stressors like the bright lights or the loud noises and things like that. So that is basically the protocol for people who have brain injuries. And another really important factor is avoiding sustaining another brain injury period, but especially before that previous brain injury has had time to recover. So for the women who are experiencing partner violence, they may easily, and we know that many of them are sustaining brain injuries. One brain injury, they're still probably suffering from that one. Still have symptoms. And then they sustained another one. And maybe it would be in the form of, you know, getting their head hit against something. We don't even know what the interaction is between something like a traumatic brain injury where their head is physically forced to smash against something, or strangulation that may cut off oxygen to the brain and cause potentially hypoxic damage to the brain. And that's another form of what we might say in acquired brain injury. So there's so many unknowns, and that's just another reason why women in partner violence situations need to be studied. Because, you know, if you look at other brain injured populations, even repetitive brain injuries, say, for example, maybe in the military or in sports, they're getting a certain type of brain injury. CHAKRABARTI: I think you were saying that in terms of athletics, in football in particular, we understand the type of brain injuries better than we understand the type of brain injuries that survivors of domestic violence have. Because we don't have enough research about what's happening in people's homes. Rachel, let me turn back to you. So again, we're going to talk about in the show, like, how do we improve this situation? But I want to better understand the status quo at the moment. How hard is it for survivors to get assistance or services at the moment? RAMIREZ: That that is one of our challenges. As we have set up a service system that, again, was constructed in the 1980s and 1990s. And when we had a lot less knowledge about domestic violence, a lot less knowledge about brain injury and a lot less knowledge about the intersection. So brain injury and its impact wasn't even really taken into consideration when we were designing these services, and these systems. Thinking about the complicated paperwork that sometimes domestic violence victims might need to do if they want to get a protection order. Talking about the importance of their story or being able to remember details of events when somebody might be involved in a criminal prosecution. My world and my responsibility at the statewide coalition is really looking at domestic violence programs. And it was even getting to the point where we were like, oh, my gosh, you know, we have these people coming into shelter services and then we have this big packet of intake paperwork. And we have certain kind of pressures on, you know, we want to get people back out. We want to get people into permanent housing. We want to do that and kind of trying to get people on a very quick timeline, figuring out housing, figuring out childcare, figuring out finances, figuring all of these things out. And so I think it really, really forced us, a part of the kind of the big picture that we've learned from our work, is we really need to think about how we're providing services differently and think about how we're accommodating some of these unique needs. And maybe the best thing for a survivor to do if they come into shelter is to sleep for 16 hours. And that doesn't mean that they don't want to meet with us, and that doesn't mean they're not interested in figuring out housing. CHAKRABARTI: Today, we're talking about what could be a hidden epidemic of traumatic brain injury among survivors of domestic violence in this country. I'm joined today by Rachel Ramirez. She's with us from Columbus, Ohio. She's a licensed social worker and founder and director of the Center on Partner Inflicted Brain Injury, a project run by the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. And Eva Valera is with us as well, associate professor at Harvard Medical School and a neuroscientist who spent a couple of decades researching the prevalence of TBI and in among intimate partner violence survivors. And, you know, a minute or two ago, I had said, hey, maybe if anyone from the NFL wants to use their megaphone to shine a light on this. Well, we got a very notable comment on Twitter from Abe Levine, who told me it should be noted that the NFL has a domestic abuse problem and should be shining a light on how partners of, quote, modern gladiators might also be part of this traumatic brain injury epidemic. But this, of course, would force the NFL and Americans to ask larger question. So, Abe. Point well taken. Now, I want to go back, if we can, and listen to more of the story from Freya Doe. We heard from her at the beginning of the show and the truly awful abuse she suffered in her first marriage. She told us about her husband smashing her head repeatedly against the wall, throwing her off a porch, hospitalizing her. Her brain was damaged. She had trouble reading, remembering names and even what she was saying, sometimes mid-sentence. And all of those problems he was having. Well, she eventually discovered their root cause. FREYA DOE: I don't think I ever put two and two together until when I saw the article that Dr. Valera had written. And I was reading it. And I'm looking at all of these symptoms from traumatic brain injury, from domestic violence. And I'm like, got that, got that, got that. Been dealing with that. Oh, my God. I need to talk to this woman. So it had been almost 30 years since I had the traumatic brain injury. You know, one of my traumatic brain injuries. But it was 15 years when I started noticing symptoms, but I didn't know what those symptoms were related to. And it wasn't until I spoke with Dr. Valera in 2016, 2017, when I finally had answers. And having an answer to what was going on with me was such a relief. 'What happened to me was not a shameful thing. The shame did not belong on me. The shame belonged on him.' And it also allowed me to realize that what happened to me was not a shameful thing. The shame did not belong on me. The shame belonged on him. I know now that sometimes what happens to me is neuro fatigue. So if I'm working an eight hour day, by the end of that day, I try not doing anything that's too brainy, so to speak, because I know I could possibly make a mistake because by that time of the day, I'm getting neuro fatigued. And when I get neural fatigue, I start stuttering. I have many times had to say to people, now I apologize, but my weekend is super busy doing X, Y or Z, so I can't do this other activity. Can we do it another weekend or you know, I have to limit myself for the things that I can do beyond going to work, which kind of stinks. But it is what it is and it's what I have to do in order to keep symptoms at bay. And I told her at that time that, you know, the reason I reached out to her was I didn't think that there was anything that might ever be able to be done for me to help fix me. But if my story, if what happened to me, if my brain, if studying something with me would help someone in the future, not have to ever have that question of am I, you know, having early onset Alzheimer's or some kind of dementia, or am I losing my mind. If I could in any way contribute to her studies and help anybody in the future, either not have to deal with that or to help them get answers sooner so that maybe, you know, I could help them discovering ways of helping to reverse these things. Whatever it is that I could do. I wanted to volunteer to do. That's why I donated my brain to the VA brain bank. They can't have it now. They have to wait till I'm dead. That's why I volunteered for anything that I could do, including, you know, speaking at these medical symposiums, because I wasn't somebody that got help within a few days or a week or a month or even a year of the brain injury. As being somebody who, it's been 30 years and I've really had no medical intervention for rehabilitation. I wanted to do what I could for anyone else down the line. I have the most wonderful husband in the world. 'Whatever it is that I could do. I wanted to volunteer to do. That's why I donated my brain to the VA brain bank.' When I told him about everything that had happened to me. He just reached over and held me. And he cried for me. And he just said to me, How could anybody do that to you? And I said, I don't know. But they did. He is a very dedicated, loving, tender, sweet human being, and he has been there for me through so many things. ... We've together for 16 years. ... And we've been through so many things and every day, I'm happy. There isn't a day that goes by that, you know, there's not a hug and a kiss. There's always I love you's. I have the American dream without unfortunately, without the children. But I got the house and the white picket fence and the husband and the dog and six chickens. I got a good job, good friends. I have a loving family. And, you know, nothing in life is perfect, but life is pretty darn good. CHAKRABARTI: Freya Doe. And again we are not using her real name. Freya is a pseudonym in order to protect her safety. Rachel I'll start with you first. There's so much that Freya said that we should talk about, but it really just stopped me in my tracks when she said learning about the fact that she had a traumatic brain injury helped her feel less ashamed and that it allowed her to begin to understand that the shame belonged to her former husband. How important is that? Because I imagine, especially when perhaps there's, you know, children in the picture. And as a survivor, having trouble concentrating, your head hurts, all of these things which make it even harder to function in an already impossible environment. The shame must be crippling. So how important is it ... to help women realize it's not their fault? RAMIREZ: I will tell you, one of the most powerful things of this whole project is hearing domestic violence victims say, you know, I thought I was stupid. I thought I was crazy. I thought it was me. I didn't know if this stuff was real. But for there to be that knowledge that some of the things that you might be struggling with are impacted by injury. It's not because you're stupid. It's not because something's wrong with you. And also that there are ways in which ... we can accommodate for those needs. Freya talked about how having knowledge and really recognizing that she's neuro fatigued at the end of the day, and she arranges her days differently and doesn't think that when she comes home from work, and her brain's really tired and she can't do all of the other tasks that it's me and I should be able to do this. And I used to be able to do this stuff and now I can't. So it must be something wrong with me. So that has been a huge load off of survivors. And we really think it does help prevent worsening mental health. It does help prevent worsening health problems. It does help prevent even things. I've talked to survivors who have been suicidal because they have all of these things going on and they keep going to these doctors and all of those different kinds of things. So I think ... it has been so amazing for survivors to better understand how they've been impacted. And then think about there might be ways in which they can live their lives differently. And also to have that knowledge, to be able to make their own decisions about their daily activities and how they do things. I think ... it has been so amazing for survivors to better understand how they've been impacted. CHAKRABARTI: So Eve let me turn to you, because we keep saying there may be an epidemic out there, and I have to put that qualifier on there because we don't, as you said at the beginning, the show, we don't firmly know and we don't know because there hasn't been enough research yet. Now, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto from Nevada actually authored, spearheaded some legislation to get the General Accounting Office to take a look at what HHS, Health and Human Services is doing, regarding are they doing a better job at finding the data or collecting the data about traumatic brain injury and domestic violence? And the GAO in 2020 found that HHS is not doing enough right now. We reached out to Senator Cortez Masto's office to ask about this, and they said that senators working with HHS and the GAO and next steps, to be sure that Health and Human Services can collect this important data. So what needs to happen to get that done? VALERA: There's so many things. I mean, to start, we need more funding. So we absolutely need funding in every category of understanding this issue. So first for research. So for example, like when we talk about NIH grants, when I tried to get my grant, one of the comments was this has been done before because it had been done in male athletes or had been done in servicemen and women. And that is one of the most ridiculous comments ever. But nonetheless, that delayed me getting the funding because of a viewer with a comment like that. ... We need funding to study women and not just women who have experienced brain injuries, but women who have experienced partner violence. That may also include things like strangulation, that may result in an interaction between acquired brain injuries from strangulation and traumatic brain injuries from traumas directly to the head. And so money is key here. ... Epidemiological research would be great because then we can know the actual numbers, but then it will help us understand more specifically about what's going on. I mean, my data have shown connections between brain injuries and women's ability to learn a list of words, to remember that list of words, to do tasks, you know, cognitive flexibility tasks. ... More brain injuries are associated with having greater levels of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic symptom symptomatology. And strangulation is related to independent of the other types of brain injuries, is related to working memory and long-term memory and depression as well. But there are very, very, very few data out there like this. And, you know, and I've sort of done this sometimes on shoestring budgets. My imaging data were basically from a center of excellence grant from Harvard and that was $30,000. And I produced two imaging studies out of that, which is almost miraculous, because usually it takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to do imaging studies. And so that's really where we need to start for research. And then, you know, money for shelters and education. CHAKRABARTI: Well, so you're saying that awareness among even the research community that this is worthy of funding. That seems quite, quite important. Rachel, I'm going to turn back to you in a second. We're running out of time, though, and I should have done this much earlier. But Eve, there may be people listening to this right now who are saying, I know someone that has gone through this, or this has happened to me. Where could they go right now for help or more information? RAMIREZ: First of all, I mean, we know one of the things I spent my career doing training and education so that training, education and awareness is such an important next step. But I think that, you know, support people out there. You are not alone. The national domestic violence hotline is available, that you can go to the hotline ... for information. [They] have webchat, they have texting, they have a hotline number, there are several resources that have been listed, you know, on your website around the show. But we also have at the Ohio Domestic Violence Network ... our center on partner afflicted brain injury, there are resources and information that are developed and designed for domestic violence survivors who have experienced brain injury to again, to better understand what it looks like. What are some of those symptoms? What are some of those things you might be noticing about yourself, or some of those signs that you might be noticing about somebody you know who might be different. I think the other thing to remember is that everybody who is listening plays a key role in addressing brain injury caused by violence and addressing domestic violence in general. A very, very, very small percentage of domestic violence victims actually reach out to domestic violence service providers. They talk to their friends, they talk to their families, they talk to their work colleagues. They talk to people they know and trust. A very, very, very small percentage of domestic violence victims actually reach out to domestic violence service providers. One of the reasons that we don't have data or we know so little about this is we've never asked those questions or provided that education and asked questions like, you know, thank you so much for sharing about your experience. I'm here to support you. Have you ever been hit or hurt in the head? You know, do you know if you get hit or hurt in the head? It can have all of these different symptoms that we've talked about that aren't necessarily obvious. That might not happen right away. And here's some information about that. So having an educated general public, I always say now when I provide trainings about domestic violence and I ask people, what does domestic violence look like? People know it's more than physical violence. They know it's emotional abuse, they know it's financial abuse. But also for the general public to know that domestic violence can also cause a brain injury is really, really important. For the general public to know that domestic violence can also cause a brain injury is really, really important. Harvard Health Blog: "Intimate partner violence and traumatic brain injury: An 'invisible' public health epidemic" — "While studying brain injuries in the mid-1990s, I began volunteering in a domestic violence shelter. I noticed that the abuse and problems many women reported were consistent with possibly experiencing concussions." Listen: In this episode, we hear from survivors of domestic abuse. In this web extra, Paula Walters shares how she discovered her brain injury. Find the web extra here. The Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation: "Understanding Traumatic Brain Injury in Females: A State-of-the-Art Summary and Future Directions" — "In this report, we identify existing issues and challenges related to research on traumatic brain injury (TBI) in females and provide future directions for research." This program aired on November 18, 2022. Paige Sutherland Producer, On PointPaige Sutherland is a producer for On Point. More… Meghna Chakrabarti Host, On PointMeghna Chakrabarti is the host of On Point. More… Tim Skoog Sound Designer and Producer, On PointTim Skoog is a sound designer and producer for On Point. More… Advertisement

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Terry Gross A bag of assorted pills and prescription drugs is dropped off for disposal during the Drug Enforcement Administration's National Prescription Drug Take Back Day on April 24, 2021 in Los Angeles. Patrick T. Falon/AFP via Getty Images hide caption A bag of assorted pills and prescription drugs is dropped off for disposal during the Drug Enforcement Administration's National Prescription Drug Take Back Day on April 24, 2021 in Los Angeles. It's estimated that more than 107,000 people in the United States died due to opioid overdoses in 2021. Washington Post journalist Scott Higham notes it's "the equivalent of a 737 Boeing crashing and burning and killing everybody on board every single day." In the new book, American Cartel, Higham and co-author Sari Horwitz make the case that the pharmaceutical industry operated like a drug cartel, with manufacturers at the top; wholesalers in the middle; and pharmacies at the level of "street dealers." What's more, Higham says, the companies collaborated with each other — and with lawyers and lobbyists — to create legislation that protected their industry, even as they competed for market share. "Most people think it's the political parties that run the show or it's the White House that runs the show, but it really is the companies that run the show," Higham says. "People were dying by the thousands while these companies were lobbying members of Congress ... to pass legislation and to lobby members of the Department of Justice and try to slow down the DEA enforcement efforts." Higham says that big pharma fought to create legislation that would limit the DEA's ability to go after drug wholesalers. The efforts were effective; more than 100 billion pills were manufactured, distributed and dispensed between 2006 and 2014, during the height of the opioid epidemic. Meanwhile, both federal and state DEA agents are frustrated by the ways in which their enforcement efforts have been curtailed. "If you talk to them, they'll tell you that this didn't need to happen," Higham says. "The guardrails were in place to prevent an opioid epidemic. And those guardrails were removed by the drug industry, by its lobbyists, by its allies in Congress and its allies in the Justice Department." Higham says one DEA agent he spoke to put it stark terms, saying, " 'We didn't get defeated by the drug cartels. We got defeated by the K Street cartel.' " On how the DEA investigated the pharmaceutical industry as it would a drug cartel They started out by doing what any investigator would do. And that is you start out at the lowest levels of an organization. And so the lowest levels of this organization were the doctors. And there's a plethora of corrupt doctors in this country who were willing to write prescriptions for drugs, for cash, for sex, for all kinds of things, but mostly for cash. They realized that if they kept arresting doctors, that they could do that all day long. Every time they took down one doctor, another one would pop up. So then they moved up to the pill mills, which were nothing more than basically criminal fronts for drug dealers. And then they realized they could knock those over all day long. A lot of these [pill mills] were in strip shopping centers, mostly in South Florida, because the regulations were so lax down there. And people were traveling from all over the country down to South Florida, where they'd go into these pill mills. The doctor would ask a couple of cursory questions. They would say, "I have back pain." They would write them a script for oxycodone or hydrocodone, and they'd be on their way. And word quickly spread around the country that this is where you could go to get your prescriptions, and then you would take those and you would fill them in pharmacies all across the country. And so these outposts, it was kind of like the Wild West down there. And parking lots were just filled with drug users and drug dealers. It was a crazy, crazy time. And the DEA realized that there was no way that they could just rein them in, because it took a long time to investigate these operations and then prosecute them. And then and while they were doing that, five more would open up and 10 more would open up. It was like a cancer. And they realized that what they needed to do was really move up the food chain and go to the drug distributors and the manufacturers. On how pharmaceutical distributors banded together to create laws that favored their industry There are a couple of trade organizations that are at the center of the opioid industry, and one of them is called the Healthcare Distribution Alliance. It is a little known trade group, it is incredibly powerful in Washington, and it represents the three largest drug distributors in America: McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen, along with a host of smaller regional organizations. So they're like most traded organizations, they're a lobbying organization. They contribute heavily to members of Congress. But in this case, they helped the industry avoid accountability. ... A lot of people believe that the Sacklers and Purdue [Pharma] are solely responsible for the epidemic. And we realized, according to the data, that that would be wrong and that a lot of companies jumped into this emerging market, companies that we all know, household names like CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, and others that we never knew existed. Like Mallinckrodt, a company that's been in existence for 100 years. They produce 30 times the amount of pills that Purdue Pharma produced and their conduct was so egregious that the DEA once called them a drug kingpin. On the 2016 Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Law Enforcement Act, which limited the DEA's ability to go after drug distributors What the legislation did is it removed from the DEA's arsenal one of its most potent weapons. It's called the "immediate suspension order." An immediate suspension order immediately shuts down the operations of a drug warehouse, a drug company, preventing them from sending any more narcotics downstream until there's a court hearing. And it was basically removed at the height of the epidemic by changing a couple of words in the law that had been on the books since the 1970s. The guardrails were in place to prevent an opioid epidemic. And those guardrails were removed by the drug industry, by its lobbyists, by its allies in Congress and its allies in the Justice Department. Scott Higham Under the old law, you had to prove that a company's behavior was causing an imminent danger to a community. And "imminent" is the key word here. What the industry did is they changed that word from "imminent" to "immediate." So it was easy for the DEA to show that a drug company was causing imminent danger to a neighborhood or to a community by its conduct or misconduct. But to show that a company based in Upstate New York or in Ohio or in Arizona was causing an immediate danger to a community 1,000 miles or 2,000 miles away was a bar that was just too high. And the drug industry knew that the DEA would never be able to meet that bar. And since that law was passed, there's not been one immediate suspension order issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration, because they just can't meet that burden of proof. On the lawsuit against big pharma launched in 2018 by a coalition of lawyers and investigators on behalf of thousands of counties, cities and Native American tribes There is this young lawyer named Paul Farrell in Huntington, West Virginia, and he came up with this novel legal theory that these companies may be in violation of public nuisance statutes because they were flooding the communities with so many drugs. And so he set out to put together a group of lawyers, because he's just like a sole practitioner. He doesn't have a lot of money. And to wage these kinds of battles, you need a lot of lawyers and you need a lot of money. And so he started reaching out to some of the biggest law firms in America, plaintiffs' law firms. One law firm represented the states against the tobacco industry, for instance, a massive law firm run by Joe Rice. There's another law firm run by a guy named Mark Lanier, who is probably one of the most successful trial lawyers in America and who has won huge verdicts, including a $2 billion verdict against Johnson & Johnson in the talcum powder case. ... [Farrell's] really passionate because he's seen all of these people dying in his community. And [the lawyers in the other big firms] start to see that there is some value in this legal theory and that they may be able to move against these companies by filing public nuisance lawsuits. On the fines the pharmaceutical companies and distributors have had to pay Johnson & Johnson and the big three drug distributors have settled for $26 billion, which sounds like a lot of money, and that money is going to go to drug treatment programs, etc., in some of these communities. But on the day that that settlement was announced, the share prices of all those companies rose by an average of 3%. So what does that tell you about how these fines and these settlements are affecting the bottom lines of these companies? It's not having an impact. ... But when you talk to the families [of people who have died], they say: Where is the accountability? Where is the justice? This money, it's almost like the cost of doing business and it's not affecting them. They've not apologized. They've not said they've done anything wrong. And right now there are 40,000 Americans who are in jail on marijuana charges. And not one executive of a Fortune 500 company involved in the opioid trade has been charged with a crime. On how the opium industry has changed and why the market shifted to fentanyl Right now there are 40,000 Americans who are in jail on marijuana charges. And not one executive of a Fortune 500 company involved in the opioid trade has been charged with a crime. Scott Higham It's very difficult now to get pain medication and it's almost impossible to find it on the black market. And so what this has basically done is created an enormous market for the Mexican drug cartels. They have seen a ready and willing market north of the border, millions of people who have been addicted to opium. And at first, the cartels started sending heroin into the United States. It didn't really catch on all that much. I mean, heroin's a pretty dirty drug. A lot of people don't like injecting drugs. And then the cartels figured out that fentanyl is a much cheaper, easier drug to manufacture. It's much easier to smuggle. And people who are hardcore users prefer fentanyl. It's 50 times more powerful than heroin. It's exactly the same high, except more powerful. And you stay high longer. It's a lot cheaper. You don't come down as hard. And so what the cartels started to do is they started to manufacture blue oxy 30 pills with an "M" on one side and a 30 on the other, and they're counterfeit pills. They look just like Mallinckrodt's pills, except they're fentanyl, and they're shipping them by the millions through the ports of entry on the southern border. And that is the pill that is now becoming the most predominant pill on the street, except it's not Mallinckrodt, it's not oxycodone, it's fentanyl, and it's killing people like opioids have never killed people before. ... The vast majority of [overdose deaths in 2021] were due to fentanyl and the increases in the Black community and the Native American community are off the charts because of what's happening .... particularly in inner cities [of] Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, L.A., Chicago. These used to be kind of heroin towns, and heroin has been basically replaced by fentanyl. And people are overdosing by the thousands. Lauren Krenzel and Seth Kelley produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Laurel Dalrymple adapted it for the Web. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

epidemic

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By  Eric Westervelt Two studies have outlined the staggering financial, social and healthcare toll of America's gun violence epidemic. The groups behind the study hope the cost will spur legislative and cultural change. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: Gun violence, whether mass shootings, accidents or suicides, takes a seemingly incalculable toll on victims, their families and their friends. And two new studies show that the ripple effects of gun violence are deeper, wider and far costlier than previously known. Here's NPR's Eric Westervelt on the huge downstream costs of America's gun violence epidemic.ERIC WESTERVELT, BYLINE: On one level, it's almost impossible to put a dollar figure on lives shattered by gun violence to try to measure the pain of having a loved one killed or seriously injured. But researchers using federal data say they're getting a much clearer picture of the stunning consequences of gun violence, including in a less well-studied area - the economic and health impacts of non-fatal gun injuries on survivors and their families.ZIRUI SONG: Firearm deaths are staggering enough, tragic enough and shocking enough to take up most of the oxygen in the room.WESTERVELT: Dr. Zirui Song is an associate professor of health care policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School.SONG: I think it takes an additional mental bandwidth to then dig into this vastly separate but related world of survivors of firearm injuries.WESTERVELT: I caught up with Dr. Song while he was on a break from his rounds at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he practices internal medicine. In a study just published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Dr. Song and colleagues show that as a direct result of a non-fatal firearm injury, there was a four-fold increase in health care spending and, the study says, a dramatic increase in other disorders that undermine a person's health and well-being.SONG: In the first year after a non-fatal firearm injury, survivors experienced a 40% increase in physical pain or other forms of pain syndromes, a 50% increase in psychiatric disorders, and an 85% increase in substance-use disorders.WESTERVELT: And the impact isn't just on those injured by bullets. The study shows family members of survivors, too, can carry huge physical and mental burdens.SONG: Family members on average, including parents, siblings and children, experienced a 12% increase in psychiatric disorders. There is really an undercurrent of forgotten survivors whose own health and economic conditions are affected quite profoundly, even though they were lucky enough to survive.WESTERVELT: The study is based on health care claims data, not hospital survey or discharge numbers, so Dr. Song believes that allows for a more nuanced and accurate look at spending than previous studies based on other types of data. A separate study out this week by Everytown for Gun Safety delves into the larger picture, examining the direct and indirect costs from all gun violence in America, fatal and non-fatal. Sarah Burd-Sharps is research director at the gun control advocacy group.SARAH BURD-SHARPS: Looking at the economic consequence offers a wider lens for understanding just how extensive and expensive this crisis is. And this epidemic is costing our nation $557 billion annually.WESTERVELT: 557 billion a year seems astonishing, but the group says it's looking at everything from the immediate cost at a shooting, such as the police response, investigation and ambulance services, to the long-term health care costs. It also includes things like a victim's lost earnings, the price of mental health care and more. The report also tries to calculate seemingly less tangible and hard-to-pin-down costs. It estimates society loses some 1.3 billion every day for, quote, "suffering and lost well-being of gun violence to victims and their families." Burd-Sharps argues that the true annual figure is likely higher.BURD-SHARPS: This is honestly a very conservative estimate. It covers directly measurable costs. It doesn't cover things like the trauma of children who don't return to their school, the impact on businesses or on property values and taxes. It doesn't cover any of those wider reverberations.WESTERVELT: Burd-Sharps is testifying before two House committee hearings this week on the financial impact of gun violence. She says she'll tell lawmakers the group is grateful for the recent federal action on guns, which includes incentives for states to pass red-flag laws and expanded background checks for those 18 to 21. But she says she'll also tell Congress much more is needed to fight this epidemic. Eric Westervelt, NPR News. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: Gun violence, whether mass shootings, accidents or suicides, takes a seemingly incalculable toll on victims, their families and their friends. And two new studies show that the ripple effects of gun violence are deeper, wider and far costlier than previously known. Here's NPR's Eric Westervelt on the huge downstream costs of America's gun violence epidemic. ERIC WESTERVELT, BYLINE: On one level, it's almost impossible to put a dollar figure on lives shattered by gun violence to try to measure the pain of having a loved one killed or seriously injured. But researchers using federal data say they're getting a much clearer picture of the stunning consequences of gun violence, including in a less well-studied area - the economic and health impacts of non-fatal gun injuries on survivors and their families. ZIRUI SONG: Firearm deaths are staggering enough, tragic enough and shocking enough to take up most of the oxygen in the room. WESTERVELT: Dr. Zirui Song is an associate professor of health care policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School. SONG: I think it takes an additional mental bandwidth to then dig into this vastly separate but related world of survivors of firearm injuries. WESTERVELT: I caught up with Dr. Song while he was on a break from his rounds at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he practices internal medicine. In a study just published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Dr. Song and colleagues show that as a direct result of a non-fatal firearm injury, there was a four-fold increase in health care spending and, the study says, a dramatic increase in other disorders that undermine a person's health and well-being. SONG: In the first year after a non-fatal firearm injury, survivors experienced a 40% increase in physical pain or other forms of pain syndromes, a 50% increase in psychiatric disorders, and an 85% increase in substance-use disorders. WESTERVELT: And the impact isn't just on those injured by bullets. The study shows family members of survivors, too, can carry huge physical and mental burdens. SONG: Family members on average, including parents, siblings and children, experienced a 12% increase in psychiatric disorders. There is really an undercurrent of forgotten survivors whose own health and economic conditions are affected quite profoundly, even though they were lucky enough to survive. WESTERVELT: The study is based on health care claims data, not hospital survey or discharge numbers, so Dr. Song believes that allows for a more nuanced and accurate look at spending than previous studies based on other types of data. A separate study out this week by Everytown for Gun Safety delves into the larger picture, examining the direct and indirect costs from all gun violence in America, fatal and non-fatal. Sarah Burd-Sharps is research director at the gun control advocacy group. SARAH BURD-SHARPS: Looking at the economic consequence offers a wider lens for understanding just how extensive and expensive this crisis is. And this epidemic is costing our nation $557 billion annually. WESTERVELT: 557 billion a year seems astonishing, but the group says it's looking at everything from the immediate cost at a shooting, such as the police response, investigation and ambulance services, to the long-term health care costs. It also includes things like a victim's lost earnings, the price of mental health care and more. The report also tries to calculate seemingly less tangible and hard-to-pin-down costs. It estimates society loses some 1.3 billion every day for, quote, "suffering and lost well-being of gun violence to victims and their families." Burd-Sharps argues that the true annual figure is likely higher. BURD-SHARPS: This is honestly a very conservative estimate. It covers directly measurable costs. It doesn't cover things like the trauma of children who don't return to their school, the impact on businesses or on property values and taxes. It doesn't cover any of those wider reverberations. WESTERVELT: Burd-Sharps is testifying before two House committee hearings this week on the financial impact of gun violence. She says she'll tell lawmakers the group is grateful for the recent federal action on guns, which includes incentives for states to pass red-flag laws and expanded background checks for those 18 to 21. But she says she'll also tell Congress much more is needed to fight this epidemic. Eric Westervelt, NPR News. Copyright © 2022 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Fi O'Reilly Sánchez As of May 31, there have already been 233 mass shootings in 2022, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an independent organization that collects data from over 7,500 sources. That includes the massacre at Robb Elementary School last week in Uvalde, Texas, which killed 19 children and two adults and injured many others. More than 45,000 people in the U.S. were killed by guns in 2020, the Centers for Disease Control reported recently. That year, firearms became the leading cause of death for American children. On average, gun violence kills nine children every day. While these statistics are startling, they can dull the senses, at the same time that solutions seem increasingly hard to come by. Here are five books that help us go beyond the numbers: telling the stories of victims of American gun violence, and explaining how we got here and how we might get out. Tyler, 11, loved catching fish in the creek behind his house . He was accidentally shot by his best friend during a sleepover. Gary Anderson was an 18-year-old who loved to fix things – especially bikes. He was killed while walking to his mother's apartment, in what his father says was a case of mistaken identity. The baseball coaches for his team all called 9-year-old Jaiden "Smiley." He was murdered by his mom's ex-boyfriend. Another Day in the Death of America documents the lives and deaths of 10 boys – ages 9 to 19 – killed by guns over the course of a single day: Nov. 23, 2013. The randomly chosen date reflects troubling statistics of American life. But these children aren't just data points. With meticulous research, interviews with family members, and reports of gun violence around the country, Younge pieces together devastating memorials for each of the victims as he explains the circumstances that lead to their deaths. In 1966, after murdering his wife and his mother, a student climbed a tower at the University of Texas and began firing. In the end, he killed 17 people. At the time, it was the deadliest mass shooting in modern United States history. Now, it's the 10th. From a Taller Tower traces the history of the American mass shooter — at Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland — without giving in to the notoriety that so many of them seek. With few exceptions, the murderers are never named. Instead, the book examines the beliefs many Americans hold onto about guns, mass shootings and mental illness, and confronts the circumstances that allow these catastrophes to continue. In the wake of one of the United States' deadliest school shootings, students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., organized. Now, the March for Our Lives movement and nonprofit are working to end gun violence through civic engagement, education and direct action. This anthology chronicles the stories of 25 student founders through poetry, personal essays, conversations and excerpts from speeches. It details the fear they felt on Feb. 14, 2018, the countless hours required to make a movement successful, and the trauma that continues to impact survivors long after the news cameras have moved on. While it can be easy to forget how young these activists are, this look into their extraordinary work is also a reminder that they should never have needed to take on this work in the first place. All net proceeds from the book go to the March For Our Lives Action Fund. Misfire by Tim Mak. Dutton hide caption With confidential files, depositions and over 100 interviews with NRA staff and associates, NPR investigative correspondent Tim Mak chronicles the incompetence, corruption and wanton embezzlement that has marked Wayne LaPierre's (continued) oversight of the organization, and outlines how the NRA went from teaching marksmanship to sabotaging bipartisan legislation supporting background checks after the Sandy Hook massacre. With keen legal analysis, Caroline Light examines the history of violence rooted in stand-your-ground laws and the ideology of "DIY-security" citizenship in the United States from the 17th century to today. Despite the theoretical right of any American to stand their ground, Light argues that, in practice, these laws are rooted in the need to protect white men's honor. Looking at influential court cases and crucial moments in America's history, she shows how, time and time again, these laws fail to protect women, the poor, gender-nonconforming people and racial minority groups – and frequently targets them when they do try and stand their ground. A sobering read, Light illuminates how America's debates about gun control are deeply rooted in the inequality that has marked our country's history. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Sheila Mulrooney Eldred Some European countries, such as Spain, are making plans for the time they might be able to treat SARS-CoV-2 as an endemic disease — one that's always around but fairly predictable. But the World Health Organization cautions that the pandemic is not over. Above: Masked pedestrians in Barcelona, Spain, in July 2021. Joan Mateu/AP hide caption Some European countries, such as Spain, are making plans for the time they might be able to treat SARS-CoV-2 as an endemic disease — one that's always around but fairly predictable. But the World Health Organization cautions that the pandemic is not over. Above: Masked pedestrians in Barcelona, Spain, in July 2021. Each week, we answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." See an archive of our FAQs here. We all know what the word pandemic means now, but remind me what endemic means again — and are we there yet? It's been two years since the World Health Organization, on March 11, 2020, officially declared a global pandemic. Since then, we're all become too familiar with the word pandemic — and sister terms such as epidemic and outbreak. (If you're fuzzy on the definitions, check out this glossary.) "But now we're starting to hear the word 'endemic,' " says epidemiology professor Charlotte Baker at Virginia Tech — in reference to a new stage for SARS-CoV-2. So should we be looking forward to that? First, let's explain the term. The word "endemic" comes from the Greek word endēmos, which means "in the population." In epidemiology, it means that the disease is always present at a baseline level. So it's not down to zero. There are observable cases. But unlike a pandemic or epidemic, in which a disease's behavior is often surprising or unexpected, an illness that has become endemic has become more predictable. A candy analogy might help. If you think of a disease as a regular-size KitKat bar, Baker says, and you open the package one day and there are six pieces instead of four, that candy bar is acting more like an epidemic (that is, a sudden spike of a disease that could lead to a pandemic if it spreads globally). "An epidemic means more cases than we expect," she explains. And if you unwrapped a KitKat bar to reveal six pieces, you'd know something was wrong — "it throws you off, you know something's happening," she says, just as you know that you can't count on things staying the same when there's an epidemic. As much as none of us want to be joined at the hip with COVID-19 forever — that's the nature of an endemic situation — this stage does have some advantages. First of all, you know what you're getting: "Endemic means that the disease or infection reached a steady state where it doesn't cause large outbreaks but it still circulates, causing individual cases," explains epidemiologist Dr. Isaac Weisfuse, an adjunct professor in Cornell University's master's of public health program. "There's always a "background rate of infection causing cases — or maybe more cases in enclaves of people who haven't been vaccinated," he adds. Most strains of influenza are endemic, for example, and you can roughly predict when flu season will begin and end. (Every once in awhile, there are new variants that throw things off, like H1N1 in 2009, which caused a pandemic.) Other endemic diseases in the U.S. include pneumonia and chickenpox. With minimal precautions, such as vaccination, boosters and optional masking, life for most people proceeds as normal. So are we there yet, endemically speaking? "We're all in a rush to get to the endemic stage — I would love it," Baker says. "But when it will happen is a really good question." There are a few potential roadblocks in the way — namely, variants. "The problem hanging over all of us is what happens if a new variant should occur," Weisfuse says. In other words, we're far from being able to predict what will happen next with COVID-19. If the disease were a candy bar, we still don't know what to expect when we unwrap it. Also, Baker notes, the pandemic won't officially be over until the World Health Organization says it's over. Once that's decided at a special meeting, some countries could still be stuck in epidemic status while others may skip right into endemic. And, our experts noted, an endemic disease doesn't change the fact that people still need to protect themselves by getting vaccinated. "The virus might find you if you're unvaccinated or if you have underlying risk factors," Weisfuse says. A small number of those people will still need to be hospitalized, he notes. I've also heard the terms eliminated and eradicated. Is it too optimistic to hope for that? Unfortunately, yes. If a disease is "eliminated" from a country, that means no more transmission among its population (although cases might still be introduced from outsiders). That's the categorization for measles, for example, in the U.S. and a number of European countries. Other diseases such as smallpox have been eradicated, which means there is zero transmission. (The last naturally occurring case of smallpox was in 1977.) In both cases, vaccines were to thank for the decline of the diseases. COVID-19, however, is unlikely to ever be eradicated and doesn't appear to be on track to be eliminated, either, since the virus has been found in animals such as mink, hamsters and deer. "Once you have a disease with an animal reservoir, it's very hard to eradicate," Weisfuse says. That's because once it's in animals, it can find its way back to humans — like the three people in Hong Kong who reportedly caught COVID-19 from pet-store hamsters. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases," echoed that sentiment in January, when he pointed out that COVID-19 is not on a path to eradication. "If you look at the history of infectious diseases, we've only eradicated one infectious disease in man, and that's smallpox. That's not going to happen with this virus. But hopefully it will be at such a low level that it doesn't disrupt our normal social, economic and other interactions," he said at the World Economic Forum's Davos Agenda. And some places are already planning for the endemic stage: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has asked European officials to discuss when COVID-19 should be considered endemic, and California has adopted the first endemic policy for COVID in the U.S. According to The Associated Press, the California plan "emphasizes prevention and quick reaction to outbreaks over mandated masking and business shutdowns." But it's also important to remember that endemic is not synonymous with harmless. Malaria, for example, is considered endemic in a number of countries. In 2020, the World Health Organization tallied 627,000 deaths from this mosquito-borne disease. Sheila Mulrooney Eldred is a freelance health journalist in Minneapolis. She has written about COVID-19 for many publications, including The New York Times, Kaiser Health News, Medscape and The Washington Post. More at sheilaeldred.pressfolios.com. On Twitter: @milepostmedia. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Advertisement <iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/01/20/survivors-of-domestic-violence-on-living-with-traumatic-brain-injury"></iframe> Editor's Note: If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact help. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800.799.SAFE (7233), or visit https://www.thehotline.org. The suffering caused by domestic violence is emotional, spiritual and physical. But there's one aspect of that suffering that is almost invisible. "When you think about domestic violence and brain injury, almost everyone I talked to was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that totally makes sense. How had we not thought about that before?’ But we really have not made that connection," licensed social worker Rachel Ramirez says. And yet millions of survivors have been living with the impacts of these brain injuries, sometimes for decades. Listen: A survivor discovers her brain injury, and takes her power back. Find the web extra here. "Problems with balance, problems with vision, sensory problems, seizures, headaches," Ramirez says. So why is there so little research, and awareness? "There is no surge here. This has been here forever. It was here in the past. It's here now, and it's going to be here in the future," neuroscientist Eve Valera says. "It's not going to go away." Today, On Point: Survivors of domestic violence on living with traumatic brain injury. Eve Valera, PhD, neuroscientist with more than 20 years of experience researching traumatic brain injury resulting from intimate partner violence. Associate professor at Harvard Medical School and research scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital. (@EveValera2) Rachel Ramirez, licensed social worker. Founder and director of the Center on Partner-Inflicted Brain Injury, a project run by the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. Co-author of “Trauma-Informed Approaches." (@OhioDVN) Freya Doe, a domestic violence survivor. LISTEN: A 'First Person' diary featuring Freya Doe. 'The shame did not belong to me. The shame belonged on him.' Harvard Health Blog: "Intimate partner violence and traumatic brain injury: An 'invisible' public health epidemic" — "While studying brain injuries in the mid-1990s, I began volunteering in a domestic violence shelter. I noticed that the abuse and problems many women reported were consistent with possibly experiencing concussions." The Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation: "Understanding Traumatic Brain Injury in Females: A State-of-the-Art Summary and Future Directions" — "In this report, we identify existing issues and challenges related to research on traumatic brain injury (TBI) in females and provide future directions for research." MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: Today, we're going to talk about a hidden long-term consequence of domestic violence. As such, we will be hearing stories from survivors. So, a warning to listeners. Some of these stories contain explicit details of physical abuse. Freya Doe shared her story with us and the abuse she suffered from the very beginning of her first marriage when she was just 18 years old. FREYA DOE: In the very beginning, I thought I was happy. I thought I was getting the things that I wanted and needed emotionally. Looking back, I wasn't happy. I was always in emotional turmoil, to be quite honest. There was a lot of tears. There was a lot of crying. But he was very good at convincing me that I was happy. And that he was the one for me. And again, it wasn't until I was much older that I looked back and realized that I was not content. And what was happening was not love. It was obsession. It was manipulation. And in a lot of ways, it was torture. I was not allowed to leave the house. I had one friend that was his friend's wife, who I was allowed to hang out with. I wasn't allowed to get a job. And as time progressed, he got more and more frustrated with things at work. He was in the military, so he couldn’t get upset with his sergeant. So he would bring that anger home with him, and lash out at me. Anywhere from walking in the door and flinging his keys at my head, to grabbing me and slamming my head against the wall. If I said, how was your day? I might get punched. It was a constant situation of not necessarily knowing who was going to walk through that door. If he had a good day, things would be OK. If he had a bad day ... anything goes. There was a day when he had been drinking in the morning, and I had gone out and done laundry and I brought it home. And he was upset about something that someone had said to him, and got into a fight with me. And punched me in the face first and then picked me up and threw me off a porch. And then proceeded to jump on top of me, and repeatedly slammed my head into the ground and punched me in the face. Eventually, I woke up on the floor. And then he just stopped dead and looked at me and said, ‘What's wrong with you?’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘Your eyes.’ And he stood me up, and I went over to the dresser and I looked and the blood vessels in my eyes were starting to burst. That convinced him to allow me to call 9-1-1. But he kept saying, ‘I don't want to get in trouble.’ ‘I don't want to get in trouble. If you call 9-1-1, they'll find out what I did.' And I said, ‘Listen, I will just tell them that I fell off the porch, that I was dizzy and slammed the door into my face. It'll be OK. Just just let me call them, I need to go to the hospital.’ And they came. They got me under the backboard. They put the neck brace on. They got me in the stretcher. I'm completely tied down. And the guy in the ambulance gets in and he's sitting next to me, and my husband is standing on the end of the ambulance, looking down at me, as this guy says, ‘Did your husband do this to you?’ And I just shook my head as much as I could, which was not much. And, ‘No, no. Of course not. He would never do something like that to me. He loves me. He would never. He would never hurt me.’ They did 22 X-rays of my head, neck, back and chest. And I was in the hospital for five days. And a neurologist came in to see me, and he said, ‘Well, looks like, you know, you've got a concussion.’ And he said, ‘You know, you're probably going to have some light sensitivity for a while and you'll have some migraines, maybe. But the blood will drain out of your eyes and you know, everything will go back to normal.’ I just thought, 'OK, well, you know, by the time the blood drains out of my eyes, the migraine should probably go away and light sensitivity will probably go away.' And the funny thing is, is that neither has ever gone away. And it wasn't until about 15 years later that I started having some cognitive issues where I would be talking to somebody and all of a sudden in the middle of conversation, I would just kind of stop dead and my eyes would look around. Because I could not for the life of me, remember what it was that I was talking about. I could be in mid-sentence and just all of a sudden, it's gone. Everything I was just thinking is just out of my head, and I started thinking that I was getting early onset Alzheimer's, or some kind of dementia or something to that effect. I chose at that point in time, from fear, to basically ignore that and just put it out of my head. Tell myself, it's just something that happens to people. And then I started forgetting words. Like I knew what I wanted to say, and I could describe what I wanted to say, but the actual word that I wanted to use, I could not find. And every time that I would forget a word or I'd forget what I was talking about, or I wouldn't remember somebody's name that I had known for forever. That stress would like spike. And I had also developed a lot of anxiety. I started having panic attacks and things like that, that's how stressed this whole thing had gotten me. It didn't really dawn on me that I was still having these symptoms from that particular event. It never went through my mind. 'It didn't really dawn on me that I was still having these symptoms from that particular event. It never went through my mind.' CHAKRABARTI: Freya is a pseudonym. We are not disclosing her name or location in order to protect her safety. There is much more to her story, which we will hear later in the show. As you heard Freya describe, though, she was clearly suffering from repeated traumatic brain injury due to the violence she suffered by the hand of her first husband. Well, Eve Valera joins us now. She's an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and a neuroscientist who spent more than 20 years researching the prevalence of traumatic brain injury resulting from, excuse me, intimate partner violence. Professor Valera, welcome to On Point. EVE VALERA: Thank you, Meghna. So nice to be here. And I'm very appreciative of the opportunity to talk about this issue. CHAKRABARTI: Can I just first ask you, can you briefly describe to us how many women survivors there may be in the United States like Freya? VALERA: Well in my work, if you want to extrapolate from that, in the study found that about 74% women sustained at least one traumatic brain injury from the partner, and just over 50% sustained repetitive brain injuries from their partners. And so to put that in perspective, that could be, potentially, if this is extrapolating from my data, which is not epidemiological, but nonetheless an extrapolation. Over 31 million women might be walking around with brain injury from their partners. And 24 million women, and this is in the U.S. alone, walking around with repetitive brain injuries from their partners. If we want to compare that to sports, so you say, what does that really mean? Or other situations in which we know that there's recognized, let's just say, brain injuries. Annual estimates for servicemen and women might be around 18,000. And for the National Football League of the United States, that would be around 300 or 400 a year. Annual estimates for women could be as high as 1.6 million. So from my estimates, and again, these could be high because we don't have great epidemiological data. But even if you were to slash that considerably, there's really no comparison in terms of the number of women who I think have repetitive brain injuries and the number of men, largely, who are being studied in athletics or the military. CHAKRABARTI: Can you tell us the story of where you were when you first started trying to put two and two together about TBI and survivors of domestic violence. VALERA: Absolutely. I was actually in graduate school and I was doing volunteer work in a women's shelter. That was part of my interest. And I was also learning about neuropsychology, which looks at the effects of things like brain injuries in people. And so as I'm doing the work in the shelter, I hear these stories ... about women having their heads slammed against floors and walls, being thrown down stairs, having heads smashed against the car window. And I said, my gosh, these women are certainly sustaining brain injuries. And from what I was learning in my graduate work, it was clear that brain injuries are related to cognitive functioning, emotional functioning, behavioral problems like headaches, etc. And the women at the shelter were also reporting symptoms like that. So I looked and I said, okay, what do we know about this? This is crazy. We have to figure this out. And I do a search. I go to the library. It wasn't a single article. Absolutely nothing. And this is in the '90s. There was not one article that came up ... no matter what type of search words I used. It was clear that brain injuries are related to cognitive functioning, emotional functioning, behavioral problems. CHAKRABARTI: Nothing. VALERA: Exactly. CHAKRABARTI: Today, we're talking about what could be considered a hidden epidemic of traumatic brain injury among survivors of domestic violence. Potentially tens of millions of people in this country suffering traumatic brain injury due to violence received by the hands of their intimate partners. I'm joined today by Amy Valera. She's a neuroscientist who spent more than 20 years researching TBI and intimate partner violence. I'd like to now bring in Rachel Ramirez into the conversation. She's with us from Columbus, Ohio. And she's a licensed social worker and founder-director of the Center on Partner Inflicted Brain Injury. It's a project run by the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. Rachel Ramirez, welcome to you. RACHEL RAMIREZ: Thank you so much for having me. I've been waiting to talk about this with an audience like yours for a long time. So we really appreciate you bringing the importance and the attention to this issue that it deserves. CHAKRABARTI: You've done surveys, Rachel, among survivors and health care providers about what they know regarding the possibility of head trauma and TBI and domestic violence. What have you found about how much is known? RAMIREZ: Well, just to give you a little bit of background, I work for the statewide coalition on domestic violence. We have 75 local domestic violence programs that provide services to over 100,000 individuals in Ohio. And one of the roles of our work at the coalition, of which I've been at for 15 years, is really preparing domestic violence programs to provide the best service possible to survivors who are experiencing abuse. And we were given a grant in 2016 to look at increasing access to domestic violence services. And I got very, very lucky that we had written in the Ohio State University as an evaluation partner on that grant. After the grant was awarded, I sat down with Dr. Julianna Nemeth at the College of Public Health at Ohio State. And it became very clear that we had so much more that we needed to learn about this issue, that we wanted to take a research route into this. So we went and we talked to five local domestic violence programs, members of ours, and also talked to survivors who were accessing those services in 2017. When we talked to survivors and we asked, have you been hit in the head, or hurt in the head? 86% of survivors said yes. With half of survivors saying, I couldn't even tell you how many times I've been hit or hurt in the head. And 83% of survivors had been choked or strangled, which is another cause of brain injury, with about a fifth of them saying that they had been choked or strangled too many times to count. And over 70% saying that they had been strangled a few times, at least a few times. 83% of survivors had been choked or strangled, which is another cause of brain injury. CHAKRABARTI: And so can I just jump in here for a quick second? I expect someone who's going through that kind of abuse and trauma to think about these things. But when you ask them later on in that 2017 survey, did they say if they had ever wondered if they had suffered some kind of brain injury from that abuse? RAMIREZ: Hardly anybody said that. And all of these interviews were done in person, on site, face to face interviews. And I think even through the conversation of having it with survivors, even though survivors had this extensive history of head trauma, they had never thought about it in the context of a concussion, never thought about it in context of a brain injury. And that being the source of some of their challenges and some of their struggles. CHAKRABARTI: And then what about the health care providers that you talked to as well? RAMIREZ: The service providers that we talked to were mostly individuals who are working with domestic violence programs. And we asked them questions about how much do you know about brain injury? Have you ever learned anything about brain injury? What have been your experiences working with survivors, with brain injuries? And it was amazing how it was almost like a blank stare that we got back from many domestic violence service providers. ... But then even a few minutes into the group, or 15 minutes, 30 minutes later, people would say, well, I remember this survivor who had told me about head trauma and was having this and this challenge and struggle. Maybe that was a brain injury. Or remember this survivor who had struggles after experiencing strangulation, and maybe that was a brain injury. It was a framework that was really just being introduced to everybody. But it was something that everyone was like, Oh, my gosh, this makes so much sense. CHAKRABARTI: Professor Valera, you told us a few minutes ago that you had first started thinking about this in the late '90s. And, you know, Rachel's been working on this for a long time, too, Rachel just said that this survey that she's talking about was done in 2017. Now, well before 2017, we as a nation were talking about head injuries and traumatic brain injuries in athletes. We had football players sitting there telling us about how their lives were transformed by all the hits they took to the head, even with their helmets. Military, as you had mentioned earlier, with concussions and head injuries from war. And yet, I mean, it's shocking to hear that it seemed like such a light bulb moment ... when asked among ... domestic violence survivors. ... How is it possible that it went so long, even as you and Rachel and others have been trying to expand awareness about this? VALERA: I will say that there's no good reason for it. Honestly, there's no good reason. But I mean, there's a lot of potential reasons we could hypothesize about. I mean, in truth, it's a male dominated society and men get studied more than women. If we're going to talk about understanding brain injuries, for example, in research, we know that men are overwhelmingly studied, whether you're studying humans or animals. It's a male dominated society and men get studied more than women. And they had to actually put out an initiative to say, hey, we have to study more females. This has to be more of an even thing, in the National Institutes of Health, which provides a lot of grant funding. And so it was recognized that females weren't even really being studied the way they should. So most of what we know about brain injury is based on men. And what happens, I think, is we end up learning or studying or focusing on things that are, quote-unquote, important to us or important to society. And what's important to society? Well, of course, you know, the men and women who serve in the military are important to society. And that's absolutely true. I mean, we value those people. And also for a lot of people, football is important to society. I mean, of course, we watch these people on prime time, you know, smash themselves, you know, repeatedly in a game of football every Sunday or Thursday or Monday or whatever. And the NFL, the National Football League is a huge industry. So, of course, that's important. So when something comes out in one of those arenas that says this is really important and these people may be sustaining brain injuries, then people pay attention. But when a paper gets written on arguably a marginalized section of the population because people say, oh, those are just, you know, women who experience partner violence, those are just kind of those women over there. They're not that important. Well, they could just leave if they want to, or that's a private family matter. And then it's very stigmatizing, too. So we don't want to talk about it in that regard. So basically, we know gender-based violence, it disproportionately affects women, Native Americans, LGBTQ communities and underserved communities. So in my opinion, it's largely driven by the fact that this just isn't deemed as important. So there haven't been the resources to study it. CHAKRABARTI: ... Rachel, let me turn back to you. And before I fully do, I'll just throw this in. If there's anyone from the NFL listening who wants to use their gigantic megaphone to draw attention to the hidden epidemic of domestic violence survivors also suffering from traumatic brain injury. Please do. But, you know, in thinking about the comparison of the trauma that athletes or soldiers go through, they now have protocols, though, right? Like every time you get hit in the head or experienced some kind of potentially concussive events, you get sidelined and examined or you get taken off active duty, etc. There are protocols in place, but ... for survivors of domestic violence, A, they may never get medical care in the wake of the latest attack on them. And B, if they do, I'm not sure there are any protocols in place right now to ask about traumatic brain injury, and see there's no sideline for them. They have to continue on in their lives. RAMIREZ: Yeah. It's a lot, isn't it? You know, I think that that was something that was so interesting. One of the really important collaborations we've tried to do is help bring people who do brain injury work and people who do domestic violence work together to talk about this issue. But they are fields that have operated in very, very separate orbits and very, very separate spheres. And when you see, and when we think even about some of the identification protocols we have for veterans and athletes, a lot of those depend on bystanders or training parents, training coaches, training teachers to recognize signs. There aren't any bystanders in domestic violence. There are very few individuals who are assaulted in the head or choked or strangled in front of somebody. So there's nobody to stop the clock, nobody to check and make sure that you're doing okay. I mean, we just heard Freya's story about her journey just to even get someone to look at her. And then you see protocols that see things like avoid stress. And it's just totally unrealistic for the situation of domestic violence survivors, which is why talking about this in forums and in places like this is so important, because there's no kind of external group of people that we can train that can go in and, you know, kind of be there watching and alert for a possible brain injury. CHAKRABARTI: When someone suffers from a brain injury, what are the treatments that are in order to recover from it? I mean, reduction of mental load, things like that. And what is that supposed to look like? Eve, let me turn to you on that first. VALERA: We don't have some gold standard medicine or anything like that we can give people when they have a brain injury. So it's not something as simple as that. But just as we've seen in terms of what happens. So, for example, in athletics, you hit the nail on the head. There's a reduction of mental load, a physical load, etc. And there's a knowledge that you've sustained this brain injury. And if you keep pushing yourself and if you currently have what we call post concussive symptoms, those symptoms that may occur after brain injury, which may include headache, dizziness, fatigue, depression, etc. If you have those symptoms and you keep pushing yourself, you're much less likely to recover from them. It's going to take longer to recover than if you dial everything back. And then gradually resume your regular activities, once you feel like you can, and you don't have those symptoms return. And avoiding stressors like the bright lights or the loud noises and things like that. So that is basically the protocol for people who have brain injuries. And another really important factor is avoiding sustaining another brain injury period, but especially before that previous brain injury has had time to recover. So for the women who are experiencing partner violence, they may easily, and we know that many of them are sustaining brain injuries. One brain injury, they're still probably suffering from that one. Still have symptoms. And then they sustained another one. And maybe it would be in the form of, you know, getting their head hit against something. We don't even know what the interaction is between something like a traumatic brain injury where their head is physically forced to smash against something, or strangulation that may cut off oxygen to the brain and cause potentially hypoxic damage to the brain. And that's another form of what we might say in acquired brain injury. So there's so many unknowns, and that's just another reason why women in partner violence situations need to be studied. Because, you know, if you look at other brain injured populations, even repetitive brain injuries, say, for example, maybe in the military or in sports, they're getting a certain type of brain injury. CHAKRABARTI: I think you were saying that in terms of athletics, in football in particular, we understand the type of brain injuries better than we understand the type of brain injuries that survivors of domestic violence have. Because we don't have enough research about what's happening in people's homes. Rachel, let me turn back to you. So again, we're going to talk about in the show, like, how do we improve this situation? But I want to better understand the status quo at the moment. How hard is it for survivors to get assistance or services at the moment? RAMIREZ: That that is one of our challenges. As we have set up a service system that, again, was constructed in the 1980s and 1990s. And when we had a lot less knowledge about domestic violence, a lot less knowledge about brain injury and a lot less knowledge about the intersection. So brain injury and its impact wasn't even really taken into consideration when we were designing these services, and these systems. Thinking about the complicated paperwork that sometimes domestic violence victims might need to do if they want to get a protection order. Talking about the importance of their story or being able to remember details of events when somebody might be involved in a criminal prosecution. My world and my responsibility at the statewide coalition is really looking at domestic violence programs. And it was even getting to the point where we were like, oh, my gosh, you know, we have these people coming into shelter services and then we have this big packet of intake paperwork. And we have certain kind of pressures on, you know, we want to get people back out. We want to get people into permanent housing. We want to do that and kind of trying to get people on a very quick timeline, figuring out housing, figuring out childcare, figuring out finances, figuring all of these things out. And so I think it really, really forced us, a part of the kind of the big picture that we've learned from our work, is we really need to think about how we're providing services differently and think about how we're accommodating some of these unique needs. And maybe the best thing for a survivor to do if they come into shelter is to sleep for 16 hours. And that doesn't mean that they don't want to meet with us, and that doesn't mean they're not interested in figuring out housing. CHAKRABARTI: Today, we're talking about what could be a hidden epidemic of traumatic brain injury among survivors of domestic violence in this country. I'm joined today by Rachel Ramirez. She's with us from Columbus, Ohio. She's a licensed social worker and founder and director of the Center on Partner Inflicted Brain Injury, a project run by the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. And Eva Valera is with us as well, associate professor at Harvard Medical School and a neuroscientist who spent a couple of decades researching the prevalence of TBI and in among intimate partner violence survivors. And, you know, a minute or two ago, I had said, hey, maybe if anyone from the NFL wants to use their megaphone to shine a light on this. Well, we got a very notable comment on Twitter from Abe Levine, who told me it should be noted that the NFL has a domestic abuse problem and should be shining a light on how partners of, quote, modern gladiators might also be part of this traumatic brain injury epidemic. But this, of course, would force the NFL and Americans to ask larger question. So, Abe. Point well taken. Now, I want to go back, if we can, and listen to more of the story from Freya Doe. We heard from her at the beginning of the show and the truly awful abuse she suffered in her first marriage. She told us about her husband smashing her head repeatedly against the wall, throwing her off a porch, hospitalizing her. Her brain was damaged. She had trouble reading, remembering names and even what she was saying, sometimes mid-sentence. And all of those problems he was having. Well, she eventually discovered their root cause. FREYA DOE: I don't think I ever put two and two together until when I saw the article that Dr. Valera had written. And I was reading it. And I'm looking at all of these symptoms from traumatic brain injury, from domestic violence. And I'm like, got that, got that, got that. Been dealing with that. Oh, my God. I need to talk to this woman. So it had been almost 30 years since I had the traumatic brain injury. You know, one of my traumatic brain injuries. But it was 15 years when I started noticing symptoms, but I didn't know what those symptoms were related to. And it wasn't until I spoke with Dr. Valera in 2016, 2017, when I finally had answers. And having an answer to what was going on with me was such a relief. 'What happened to me was not a shameful thing. The shame did not belong on me. The shame belonged on him.' And it also allowed me to realize that what happened to me was not a shameful thing. The shame did not belong on me. The shame belonged on him. I know now that sometimes what happens to me is neuro fatigue. So if I'm working an eight hour day, by the end of that day, I try not doing anything that's too brainy, so to speak, because I know I could possibly make a mistake because by that time of the day, I'm getting neuro fatigued. And when I get neural fatigue, I start stuttering. I have many times had to say to people, now I apologize, but my weekend is super busy doing X, Y or Z, so I can't do this other activity. Can we do it another weekend or you know, I have to limit myself for the things that I can do beyond going to work, which kind of stinks. But it is what it is and it's what I have to do in order to keep symptoms at bay. And I told her at that time that, you know, the reason I reached out to her was I didn't think that there was anything that might ever be able to be done for me to help fix me. But if my story, if what happened to me, if my brain, if studying something with me would help someone in the future, not have to ever have that question of am I, you know, having early onset Alzheimer's or some kind of dementia, or am I losing my mind. If I could in any way contribute to her studies and help anybody in the future, either not have to deal with that or to help them get answers sooner so that maybe, you know, I could help them discovering ways of helping to reverse these things. Whatever it is that I could do. I wanted to volunteer to do. That's why I donated my brain to the VA brain bank. They can't have it now. They have to wait till I'm dead. That's why I volunteered for anything that I could do, including, you know, speaking at these medical symposiums, because I wasn't somebody that got help within a few days or a week or a month or even a year of the brain injury. As being somebody who, it's been 30 years and I've really had no medical intervention for rehabilitation. I wanted to do what I could for anyone else down the line. I have the most wonderful husband in the world. 'Whatever it is that I could do. I wanted to volunteer to do. That's why I donated my brain to the VA brain bank.' When I told him about everything that had happened to me. He just reached over and held me. And he cried for me. And he just said to me, How could anybody do that to you? And I said, I don't know. But they did. He is a very dedicated, loving, tender, sweet human being, and he has been there for me through so many things. ... We've together for 16 years. ... And we've been through so many things and every day, I'm happy. There isn't a day that goes by that, you know, there's not a hug and a kiss. There's always I love you's. I have the American dream without unfortunately, without the children. But I got the house and the white picket fence and the husband and the dog and six chickens. I got a good job, good friends. I have a loving family. And, you know, nothing in life is perfect, but life is pretty darn good. CHAKRABARTI: Freya Doe. And again we are not using her real name. Freya is a pseudonym in order to protect her safety. Rachel I'll start with you first. There's so much that Freya said that we should talk about, but it really just stopped me in my tracks when she said learning about the fact that she had a traumatic brain injury helped her feel less ashamed and that it allowed her to begin to understand that the shame belonged to her former husband. How important is that? Because I imagine, especially when perhaps there's, you know, children in the picture. And as a survivor, having trouble concentrating, your head hurts, all of these things which make it even harder to function in an already impossible environment. The shame must be crippling. So how important is it ... to help women realize it's not their fault? RAMIREZ: I will tell you, one of the most powerful things of this whole project is hearing domestic violence victims say, you know, I thought I was stupid. I thought I was crazy. I thought it was me. I didn't know if this stuff was real. But for there to be that knowledge that some of the things that you might be struggling with are impacted by injury. It's not because you're stupid. It's not because something's wrong with you. And also that there are ways in which ... we can accommodate for those needs. Freya talked about how having knowledge and really recognizing that she's neuro fatigued at the end of the day, and she arranges her days differently and doesn't think that when she comes home from work, and her brain's really tired and she can't do all of the other tasks that it's me and I should be able to do this. And I used to be able to do this stuff and now I can't. So it must be something wrong with me. So that has been a huge load off of survivors. And we really think it does help prevent worsening mental health. It does help prevent worsening health problems. It does help prevent even things. I've talked to survivors who have been suicidal because they have all of these things going on and they keep going to these doctors and all of those different kinds of things. So I think ... it has been so amazing for survivors to better understand how they've been impacted. And then think about there might be ways in which they can live their lives differently. And also to have that knowledge, to be able to make their own decisions about their daily activities and how they do things. I think ... it has been so amazing for survivors to better understand how they've been impacted. CHAKRABARTI: So Eve let me turn to you, because we keep saying there may be an epidemic out there, and I have to put that qualifier on there because we don't, as you said at the beginning, the show, we don't firmly know and we don't know because there hasn't been enough research yet. Now, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto from Nevada actually authored, spearheaded some legislation to get the General Accounting Office to take a look at what HHS, Health and Human Services is doing, regarding are they doing a better job at finding the data or collecting the data about traumatic brain injury and domestic violence? And the GAO in 2020 found that HHS is not doing enough right now. We reached out to Senator Cortez Masto's office to ask about this, and they said that senators working with HHS and the GAO and next steps, to be sure that Health and Human Services can collect this important data. So what needs to happen to get that done? VALERA: There's so many things. I mean, to start, we need more funding. So we absolutely need funding in every category of understanding this issue. So first for research. So for example, like when we talk about NIH grants, when I tried to get my grant, one of the comments was this has been done before because it had been done in male athletes or had been done in servicemen and women. And that is one of the most ridiculous comments ever. But nonetheless, that delayed me getting the funding because of a viewer with a comment like that. ... We need funding to study women and not just women who have experienced brain injuries, but women who have experienced partner violence. That may also include things like strangulation, that may result in an interaction between acquired brain injuries from strangulation and traumatic brain injuries from traumas directly to the head. And so money is key here. ... Epidemiological research would be great because then we can know the actual numbers, but then it will help us understand more specifically about what's going on. I mean, my data have shown connections between brain injuries and women's ability to learn a list of words, to remember that list of words, to do tasks, you know, cognitive flexibility tasks. ... More brain injuries are associated with having greater levels of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic symptom symptomatology. And strangulation is related to independent of the other types of brain injuries, is related to working memory and long-term memory and depression as well. But there are very, very, very few data out there like this. And, you know, and I've sort of done this sometimes on shoestring budgets. My imaging data were basically from a center of excellence grant from Harvard and that was $30,000. And I produced two imaging studies out of that, which is almost miraculous, because usually it takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to do imaging studies. And so that's really where we need to start for research. And then, you know, money for shelters and education. CHAKRABARTI: Well, so you're saying that awareness among even the research community that this is worthy of funding. That seems quite, quite important. Rachel, I'm going to turn back to you in a second. We're running out of time, though, and I should have done this much earlier. But Eve, there may be people listening to this right now who are saying, I know someone that has gone through this, or this has happened to me. Where could they go right now for help or more information? RAMIREZ: First of all, I mean, we know one of the things I spent my career doing training and education so that training, education and awareness is such an important next step. But I think that, you know, support people out there. You are not alone. The national domestic violence hotline is available, that you can go to the hotline ... for information. [They] have webchat, they have texting, they have a hotline number, there are several resources that have been listed, you know, on your website around the show. But we also have at the Ohio Domestic Violence Network ... our center on partner afflicted brain injury, there are resources and information that are developed and designed for domestic violence survivors who have experienced brain injury to again, to better understand what it looks like. What are some of those symptoms? What are some of those things you might be noticing about yourself, or some of those signs that you might be noticing about somebody you know who might be different. I think the other thing to remember is that everybody who is listening plays a key role in addressing brain injury caused by violence and addressing domestic violence in general. A very, very, very small percentage of domestic violence victims actually reach out to domestic violence service providers. They talk to their friends, they talk to their families, they talk to their work colleagues. They talk to people they know and trust. A very, very, very small percentage of domestic violence victims actually reach out to domestic violence service providers. One of the reasons that we don't have data or we know so little about this is we've never asked those questions or provided that education and asked questions like, you know, thank you so much for sharing about your experience. I'm here to support you. Have you ever been hit or hurt in the head? You know, do you know if you get hit or hurt in the head? It can have all of these different symptoms that we've talked about that aren't necessarily obvious. That might not happen right away. And here's some information about that. So having an educated general public, I always say now when I provide trainings about domestic violence and I ask people, what does domestic violence look like? People know it's more than physical violence. They know it's emotional abuse, they know it's financial abuse. But also for the general public to know that domestic violence can also cause a brain injury is really, really important. For the general public to know that domestic violence can also cause a brain injury is really, really important. Harvard Health Blog: "Intimate partner violence and traumatic brain injury: An 'invisible' public health epidemic" — "While studying brain injuries in the mid-1990s, I began volunteering in a domestic violence shelter. I noticed that the abuse and problems many women reported were consistent with possibly experiencing concussions." Listen: In this episode, we hear from survivors of domestic abuse. In this web extra, Paula Walters shares how she discovered her brain injury. Find the web extra here. The Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation: "Understanding Traumatic Brain Injury in Females: A State-of-the-Art Summary and Future Directions" — "In this report, we identify existing issues and challenges related to research on traumatic brain injury (TBI) in females and provide future directions for research." This program aired on January 20, 2022. Paige Sutherland Producer, On PointPaige Sutherland is a producer for On Point. More… Meghna Chakrabarti Host, On PointMeghna Chakrabarti is the host of On Point. More… Tim Skoog Sound Designer and Producer, On PointTim Skoog is a sound designer and producer for On Point. More… Advertisement

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Brian Mann Activists participate in a candlelight vigil calling for an end to the nation's opioid addiction crisis at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., in August 2017. Alex Wong/Getty Images hide caption Activists participate in a candlelight vigil calling for an end to the nation's opioid addiction crisis at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., in August 2017. Deaths due to drug overdose have topped a million for the first time since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began collecting data on the problem more than two decades ago. A study released Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the CDC, found that 932,364 people died in the U.S. from fatal overdoses from 1999 through 2020. Separate preliminary data from the CDC shows another 100,000 drug deaths expected in 2021. Unlike the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit elderly Americans hardest, researchers found drug deaths have risen fastest among the young and middle-aged adults struggling with addiction. "Among adults aged 35–44, the age group with the highest rates, drug overdose deaths increased 33% from 2019 to 2020," the report found. Men are also more vulnerable than women, it said. The opioid epidemic began in the late 1990s when the pharmaceutical and health care industries started marketing and prescribing highly addictive painkillers far more aggressively. In recent years, most overdose deaths have involved illicit fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, as well as cocaine and methamphetamines. After public health officials made some early progress in reducing drug deaths, researchers found overdoses began rising again after 2013 with a sharp increase in fatalities during the first year of the pandemic. Young people ages 15-24 saw the biggest year-to-year increase of fatal overdoses with deaths up 49% in 2020. The Biden administration has scrambled in recent months to try to slow the rate of drug deaths, in part by making medical treatment more widely available for people with addiction. Last month, the first safe consumption site in the U.S., where people can use street drugs under medical supervision, opened in New York City. Despite the growing death rate, public health "harm reduction" strategies for people with addiction have faced resistance and legal challenges around the country. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Yuki Noguchi Dennis Gaudet's home in central Maine is surrounded by fields and woods, and many miles away from anyone able to treat his opioid use disorder. "I was on a waiting list to get in to see a psychiatrist for over two years, [and] since the pandemic began, nobody was accepting new patients," says Gaudet, 48, who's spent over half his life struggling with an addiction that began with painkillers prescribed after he suffered injuries on a construction job. The lack of available treatment options, he says, has left a mark on his community and his own life; in the past three years, Gaudet has lost six friends to overdoses. But last year, thanks to pandemic-related relaxations of prescribing rules, Gaudet was able to get treatment from a clinic in California with an addiction specialist licensed in Maine that he says has helped him through many a mental health crisis. The telehealth clinic also fills his prescriptions for buprenorphine, a regulated drug that curbs his cravings. Without it, he says, "I would've gone back on the streets and done heroin and fentanyl again." A growing number of Americans with opioid use disorder have benefitted from a rule change early in the pandemic that allowed them to access prescriptions of their controlled medications, via telehealth. These medications, which are themselves opioids, are regulated heavily by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Normally, a patient must see their doctor regularly — in person — to get the medications. But at the outset of the pandemic, the DEA and all 50 states temporarily suspended those safeguards, even allowing prescribing by out-of-state physicians, a practice normally prohibited by medical boards. At a time when opioid overdose deaths were spiking, those temporary telehealth expansions not only helped patients work around pandemic lockdowns, but they also eliminated some common barriers to care that have plagued addiction treatment, like a shortage of health care providers able to prescribe them, lack of transportation to get to the doctor, or having a suspended driver's license. These allowances were pegged to state or federal states of emergencies, so once those come to an end — absent new legislation — the pre-pandemic rules will come back, including requirements to see a doctor in person for a prescription. For some clinicians and regulators, a return of the earlier rules is necessary to protect against prescription drug abuse. After all, lax regulatory oversight in 1990s gave rise to painkiller pill mills, which fueled the country's original opioid epidemic. Others argue reverting back to the old way of treatment will set back patients trying to fight their opioid addiction. This is why virtual prescribing of controlled medications is telehealth's most controversial frontier. And that puts policymakers in a tough spot. "You have people who are really in need of this and telehealth could really help them," says Courtney Joslin, resident fellow at the R Street Institute, a free-market think tank. "On the other end, you do have that hesitancy because of the pill mill problem, previously, [so] you could have some abuse from both patients and providers using telehealth to get controlled substances." Telehealth's growth — estimated by McKinsey to have expanded 38-fold since the pandemic — has spawned a flurry of state and federal legislative proposals. In deciding the future of telehealth rules, policymakers are looking for data to figure out the lessons learned — what worked, what didn't — during this emergency period. Absent evidence of abuse, says Senator Mark Warner, D-Va., telehealth should continue for medically-assisted opioid treatment. "We've now had 18 months to have telehealth expand dramatically; it would be a huge mistake to roll back that progress," Warner says. "If you cut off that ability to deliver those substances with appropriate protections, you're really cutting back on the path to recovery for a lot of folks." Yet of the estimated 1,000 telehealth bills pending before state and federal lawmakers now, very few mention controlled medications. That's partly because Congress already passed a law in 2018, directing the DEA to set up a registry of physicians authorized to prescribe regulated drugs using telehealth. More than two years after the deadline, that database doesn't exist. The DEA declined to comment on when it might be completed. "The DEA kept on saying they're going to do that, but there has been no action taken," says Kyle Zebley, vice president of public policy for the American Telemedicine Association. Therefore, says Zebley, once current relaxed telehealth rules expire, patients relying on them will face what Zebley calls a "telehealth cliff." "Now we have millions of Americans — so, a huge cohort — that are relying on virtual online prescribing of controlled substances and that will go away," he says. "An already heightened opioid and substance use crisis will be significantly exacerbated." The medical community, meanwhile, is of two minds about the trade offs. In November survey by drug-testing company Quest Diagnostics, 75% of physicians who prescribe opioids said telehealth limits their ability to determine whether patients are potentially misusing drugs. On the other hand, many say they have found they can help more patients in urgent need of care. There is always a risk that some patients and doctors may try to abuse telehealth rules to divert drugs, says Huntington, Calif., addiction specialist, Joseph DeSanto. But last year, DeSanto found more benefit than downside; during the pandemic, he was able to care for 20 patients living out of state. "We could treat anyone, anywhere in the U.S.," until California returned to its old rules earlier this year, DeSanto says. "The response was resoundingly positive, and we were able to see patients that wouldn't normally have gotten help," he says. For example, DeSanto says, he treated one Tennessee man in his early 30s, who called DeSanto from a rural area where addiction doctors are practically unheard of. During lockdown, the man relapsed on opioids — something DeSanto says was common for patients. DeSanto prescribed the patient buprenorphine to fight his addiction, until the patient located a doctor in state. "It gave him some time, and I'm not sure if he would've had that time if he relapsed and didn't realize that he had the ability to see a doctor that wasn't local to him," he says. On the other hand, there are downsides to relying so heavily on virtual-only treatment, says Dr. Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at Stanford. "We've seen an increased number of patients who told us that they were doing fine — saying they were taking their buprenorphine — who then overdosed from fentanyl," she says. "In retrospect [we] wonder [if they] would have been caught if we had been getting regular urine [toxicology] screens, or had we been seeing them in person." Lembke says telehealth has transformed the mental health field. It allowed her outreach to expand to include people who couldn't access care in the past, for example, but she's also keenly aware of the risks. She wants to see better tools to enable remote monitoring of patient biomedical information, like urine tests and blood pressure. "I think that there are probably a lot more patients that are not doing well that we don't know about," Lembke says. "We don't have a good handle on who is doing well and who isn't, because when patients relapse, part of the disease is they don't tell the truth about what's going on with them." Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Ailsa Chang ,  Alejandra Marquez Janse ,  Ashley Westerman NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson about a case against three drug distributors for their alleged role in the opioid epidemic, as case's trial starts Monday. AILSA CHANG, HOST: We're going to go to Washington state now. That's where a trial starts next Monday in the state's case against three of America's biggest drug distributors for their alleged role in fueling the opioid epidemic. These companies are McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen. Washington state attorney general Bob Ferguson, who's suing these companies, rejected an opioid settlement offer earlier this year, saying that it was, quote, "not nearly enough for Washington." This epidemic has cost countless lives in Washington state. According to the state's department of health, nearly 1,200 people died from an opioid overdose in last year alone. State attorney general Bob Ferguson joins us now. Welcome.BOB FERGUSON: Thanks for having me, Ailsa - really appreciate it.CHANG: Appreciate having you here. So this national settlement that these companies, along with Johnson & Johnson, proposed was worth something like $26 billion. Most states have signed onto it. So tell me why it felt inadequate to you.FERGUSON: Sure. So I did reject that settlement, which would have brought in, you know, several hundred million dollars to the state of Washington. By the way, that would have been not just for the state, which I represent, but every city and county, which we have a few hundred. And those payments would've been spread out over 18 years - would have been about $30 million a year. Look; you don't have to be an expert in the impacts of the opioid epidemic and the harm caused by these defendants to realize that just is not enough to remedy the situation, dollars for treatment and to address the harms to our state. So for that reason, combined with the fact that there is no actual accountability for these companies, were key reasons why I rejected it.CHANG: OK. Well, let's talk about that because I'm curious, what do you think you can get out of a full-blown trial at this point that that settlement offer could not give you? Is it just more money or is there something else?FERGUSON: We do think there should be more money. But there is something else, and that something else is the many conversations I've had with Washingtonians since we filed this lawsuit - parents who lost their child, for example, to opioid addiction - where they say, hey; the money's important, but what I really want, Bob, is to be able to walk into a courtroom someday and see these individuals testify under oath about what they knew and when they knew it, why they made the decisions they did and to hear a jury or a judge say what they did was wrong, that they broke the law. So there is something more than money here at stake. And that word is, frankly, accountability. And that's what's lacking in that settlement.CHANG: Well, I want to talk about a legal theory that's been used in a lot of opioid litigation so far. States have been arguing that, you know, these big drug makers and distributors created what's called a public nuisance by flooding communities with prescription opioids. And because of that, they should be liable for billions of dollars. But as you well know, this month, a judge in California and the Oklahoma state Supreme Court both rejected this public nuisance argument. I understand you are also using public nuisance as a theory in your lawsuit. So how confident are you that this legal strategy will be effective here?FERGUSON: We're very confident. A couple quick points - No. 1 is it's really apples and oranges. Each state has different laws, and so we believe the laws in Washington are robust and strong and that our cases are strong. In addition, the facts in our case are unique. So as an example, these three distributors distributed more opioid prescriptions, not pills, more prescriptions, than there are people in a dozen counties in our state. I don't think you have to have a Ph.D. in investigations to know that what they did was wrong, what they did was ignore the red flags and pursued profits over following the law.CHANG: Well, what happens if you lose that trial? Is there a risk that people in Washington will get nothing after all is said and done?FERGUSON: Of course, there's uncertainty in going to a trial. There's no question about that. But one thing I believe in is that the people in the state of Washington deserve their day in court. And is there a risk associated with that? You bet. But we feel very confident in our case, and I believe it's important that at some point these companies have to walk into a courtroom and try and defend their actions.CHANG: But can we talk about this idea of accountability? Because what does accountability mean at this point after so many lives have been lost and the lives that are still with us have been destroyed in so many cases? What more beyond money do you think is needed to achieve actual accountability here?FERGUSON: Well, there's a couple of things. So No. 1, more money than that settlement offer is important to actually get the resources we need as a state to provide more resources for treatment and prevention. But I would not underestimate the importance of accountability in the sense that a judge says what these companies did was wrong. Keep in mind that sum that we've been talking about, it has zero accountability. Those companies do not acknowledge they broke the law, do not even issue an apology for what has happened. And to me, that is unacceptable.CHANG: Washington state attorney general Bob Ferguson, thank you very much for being with us today.FERGUSON: Thank you so much, really appreciate it. AILSA CHANG, HOST: We're going to go to Washington state now. That's where a trial starts next Monday in the state's case against three of America's biggest drug distributors for their alleged role in fueling the opioid epidemic. These companies are McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen. Washington state attorney general Bob Ferguson, who's suing these companies, rejected an opioid settlement offer earlier this year, saying that it was, quote, "not nearly enough for Washington." This epidemic has cost countless lives in Washington state. According to the state's department of health, nearly 1,200 people died from an opioid overdose in last year alone. State attorney general Bob Ferguson joins us now. Welcome. BOB FERGUSON: Thanks for having me, Ailsa - really appreciate it. CHANG: Appreciate having you here. So this national settlement that these companies, along with Johnson & Johnson, proposed was worth something like $26 billion. Most states have signed onto it. So tell me why it felt inadequate to you. FERGUSON: Sure. So I did reject that settlement, which would have brought in, you know, several hundred million dollars to the state of Washington. By the way, that would have been not just for the state, which I represent, but every city and county, which we have a few hundred. And those payments would've been spread out over 18 years - would have been about $30 million a year. Look; you don't have to be an expert in the impacts of the opioid epidemic and the harm caused by these defendants to realize that just is not enough to remedy the situation, dollars for treatment and to address the harms to our state. So for that reason, combined with the fact that there is no actual accountability for these companies, were key reasons why I rejected it. CHANG: OK. Well, let's talk about that because I'm curious, what do you think you can get out of a full-blown trial at this point that that settlement offer could not give you? Is it just more money or is there something else? FERGUSON: We do think there should be more money. But there is something else, and that something else is the many conversations I've had with Washingtonians since we filed this lawsuit - parents who lost their child, for example, to opioid addiction - where they say, hey; the money's important, but what I really want, Bob, is to be able to walk into a courtroom someday and see these individuals testify under oath about what they knew and when they knew it, why they made the decisions they did and to hear a jury or a judge say what they did was wrong, that they broke the law. So there is something more than money here at stake. And that word is, frankly, accountability. And that's what's lacking in that settlement. CHANG: Well, I want to talk about a legal theory that's been used in a lot of opioid litigation so far. States have been arguing that, you know, these big drug makers and distributors created what's called a public nuisance by flooding communities with prescription opioids. And because of that, they should be liable for billions of dollars. But as you well know, this month, a judge in California and the Oklahoma state Supreme Court both rejected this public nuisance argument. I understand you are also using public nuisance as a theory in your lawsuit. So how confident are you that this legal strategy will be effective here? FERGUSON: We're very confident. A couple quick points - No. 1 is it's really apples and oranges. Each state has different laws, and so we believe the laws in Washington are robust and strong and that our cases are strong. In addition, the facts in our case are unique. So as an example, these three distributors distributed more opioid prescriptions, not pills, more prescriptions, than there are people in a dozen counties in our state. I don't think you have to have a Ph.D. in investigations to know that what they did was wrong, what they did was ignore the red flags and pursued profits over following the law. CHANG: Well, what happens if you lose that trial? Is there a risk that people in Washington will get nothing after all is said and done? FERGUSON: Of course, there's uncertainty in going to a trial. There's no question about that. But one thing I believe in is that the people in the state of Washington deserve their day in court. And is there a risk associated with that? You bet. But we feel very confident in our case, and I believe it's important that at some point these companies have to walk into a courtroom and try and defend their actions. CHANG: But can we talk about this idea of accountability? Because what does accountability mean at this point after so many lives have been lost and the lives that are still with us have been destroyed in so many cases? What more beyond money do you think is needed to achieve actual accountability here? FERGUSON: Well, there's a couple of things. So No. 1, more money than that settlement offer is important to actually get the resources we need as a state to provide more resources for treatment and prevention. But I would not underestimate the importance of accountability in the sense that a judge says what these companies did was wrong. Keep in mind that sum that we've been talking about, it has zero accountability. Those companies do not acknowledge they broke the law, do not even issue an apology for what has happened. And to me, that is unacceptable. CHANG: Washington state attorney general Bob Ferguson, thank you very much for being with us today. FERGUSON: Thank you so much, really appreciate it. Copyright © 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Brian Mann The nation's biggest name-brand pharmacy chains including CVS and Walmart are facing opening arguments in a high-profile opioid trial beginning Monday in Ohio. AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: This afternoon in Cleveland, a federal jury trial opened to ask a basic question. Do the nation's big pharmacy chains bear any blame for the nation's deadly opioid epidemic? Critics say several pharmacy chains put customers at risk, selling tens of millions of highly addictive pain pills. CVS, Walgreens, Walmart and a regional chain called Giant Eagle say they did nothing wrong. And here, we want to note that the Walton Family Foundation, created by the founders of Walmart, is an NPR sponsor. Now, NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann is in Cleveland. He joins us now from the courthouse steps.Brian, let's start with what the companies are facing in terms of accusations.BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Yeah. So Mark Lanier is the lead attorney, Audie, who's suing these firms on behalf of two Ohio counties in what's widely seen as a national test case. And this afternoon, Lanier laid out this really damning story, saying these pharmacy chains sold vast quantities of these dangerous pain pills without putting in place the monitoring and safety systems needed to protect patients. And Lanier said that failure made it possible for criminals and drug dealers to use pharmacies to feed a black market for opioid pills that stretched from Florida to Kentucky to Ohio. And he accused these companies today - and I'm quoting here - of turning a blind eye as the opioid crisis exploded and more and more people died from fatal overdoses.CORNISH: But what are the regulations? I mean, what are these companies supposed to have done?MANN: Yeah. These pills are highly regulated. According to the federal Controlled Substances Act, pharmacies are supposed to serve as kind of a last line of defense, keeping pills from going to the wrong people. So CVS, Giant Eagle, Walgreens and Walmart are required to have sophisticated systems in place to detect suspicious orders. And the accusation here, Audie, is that these firms failed to do that. They didn't hire the staff or put in the systems or just take the time needed to stop these prescriptions from going out the door.CORNISH: So, Brian, what did these companies have to say in court?MANN: So Kaspar Stoffelmayr, an attorney for Walgreens, told the jury today that these accusations just paint a totally inaccurate picture of their chain's values and ethics. In legal filings, these companies have said categorically they did nothing wrong here. They say their pharmacists tried to handle these medications carefully. And they put blame elsewhere - on doctors, on government regulators. So a key question for this jury will be whether the pharmacy chains bear any of the responsibility for this crisis. Even if jurors do give the company part of the blame, they could be on the hook for a lot of money.CORNISH: I mean, how much? What's at stake?MANN: Well, what's being argued here, Audie, is that these pharmacy chains created what's technically called a public nuisance by failing to control opioid sales. If the jury accepts that argument, these companies won't just be required to pay damages. They'll actually have to pay to solve the opioid crisis. And the cost of that, of course, could be massive. Paying for everything from emergency room costs to law enforcement and drug treatment, we're talking billions of dollars.CORNISH: We've been hearing about so many opioid trials going on across the country. Can you put this one in context?MANN: Yeah. You know, it's really interesting. After the prescription opioid boom began in the 1990s, a bunch of America's biggest Fortune 500 corporations got into the business. You know, it wasn't just Purdue Pharma. Prescription opioids meant huge profits. And we're seeing this tsunami of lawsuits filed by state and local governments arguing that corporations should be held liable for creating a massive public health crisis. And that's why this trial in Ohio is seen as a test case, you know, involving these pharmacy chains. The verdict here is going to help determine what kind of accountability corporations will face in thousands of opioid lawsuits all over the country.CORNISH: That's NPR's addiction correspondent Brian Mann speaking to us in Cleveland, reporting there on the first ever federal opioid trial that involves the nation's big pharmacy chains.Thanks so much.MANN: Thanks, Audie. AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: This afternoon in Cleveland, a federal jury trial opened to ask a basic question. Do the nation's big pharmacy chains bear any blame for the nation's deadly opioid epidemic? Critics say several pharmacy chains put customers at risk, selling tens of millions of highly addictive pain pills. CVS, Walgreens, Walmart and a regional chain called Giant Eagle say they did nothing wrong. And here, we want to note that the Walton Family Foundation, created by the founders of Walmart, is an NPR sponsor. Now, NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann is in Cleveland. He joins us now from the courthouse steps. Brian, let's start with what the companies are facing in terms of accusations. BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Yeah. So Mark Lanier is the lead attorney, Audie, who's suing these firms on behalf of two Ohio counties in what's widely seen as a national test case. And this afternoon, Lanier laid out this really damning story, saying these pharmacy chains sold vast quantities of these dangerous pain pills without putting in place the monitoring and safety systems needed to protect patients. And Lanier said that failure made it possible for criminals and drug dealers to use pharmacies to feed a black market for opioid pills that stretched from Florida to Kentucky to Ohio. And he accused these companies today - and I'm quoting here - of turning a blind eye as the opioid crisis exploded and more and more people died from fatal overdoses. CORNISH: But what are the regulations? I mean, what are these companies supposed to have done? MANN: Yeah. These pills are highly regulated. According to the federal Controlled Substances Act, pharmacies are supposed to serve as kind of a last line of defense, keeping pills from going to the wrong people. So CVS, Giant Eagle, Walgreens and Walmart are required to have sophisticated systems in place to detect suspicious orders. And the accusation here, Audie, is that these firms failed to do that. They didn't hire the staff or put in the systems or just take the time needed to stop these prescriptions from going out the door. CORNISH: So, Brian, what did these companies have to say in court? MANN: So Kaspar Stoffelmayr, an attorney for Walgreens, told the jury today that these accusations just paint a totally inaccurate picture of their chain's values and ethics. In legal filings, these companies have said categorically they did nothing wrong here. They say their pharmacists tried to handle these medications carefully. And they put blame elsewhere - on doctors, on government regulators. So a key question for this jury will be whether the pharmacy chains bear any of the responsibility for this crisis. Even if jurors do give the company part of the blame, they could be on the hook for a lot of money. CORNISH: I mean, how much? What's at stake? MANN: Well, what's being argued here, Audie, is that these pharmacy chains created what's technically called a public nuisance by failing to control opioid sales. If the jury accepts that argument, these companies won't just be required to pay damages. They'll actually have to pay to solve the opioid crisis. And the cost of that, of course, could be massive. Paying for everything from emergency room costs to law enforcement and drug treatment, we're talking billions of dollars. CORNISH: We've been hearing about so many opioid trials going on across the country. Can you put this one in context? MANN: Yeah. You know, it's really interesting. After the prescription opioid boom began in the 1990s, a bunch of America's biggest Fortune 500 corporations got into the business. You know, it wasn't just Purdue Pharma. Prescription opioids meant huge profits. And we're seeing this tsunami of lawsuits filed by state and local governments arguing that corporations should be held liable for creating a massive public health crisis. And that's why this trial in Ohio is seen as a test case, you know, involving these pharmacy chains. The verdict here is going to help determine what kind of accountability corporations will face in thousands of opioid lawsuits all over the country. CORNISH: That's NPR's addiction correspondent Brian Mann speaking to us in Cleveland, reporting there on the first ever federal opioid trial that involves the nation's big pharmacy chains. Thanks so much. MANN: Thanks, Audie. Copyright © 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Kamala Thiagarajan A road blockade set up during the Nipah virus outbreak in the southern Indian state of Kerala this month. C.K. Thanseer/DeFodi Images via Getty Images hide caption A road blockade set up during the Nipah virus outbreak in the southern Indian state of Kerala this month. In 2018, we reported on how the southern Indian state of Kerala beat back the deadly Nipah virus. Local filmmakers and musicians even made a celebratory music video about it. Three years later, the state is faced with yet a new case of Nipah — its third outbreak since 2018 — and it couldn't have come at a worse time. Kerala, known for its palm-lined beaches on the Arabian Sea, is still reeling with a caseload of 4 million coronavirus infections since the pandemic began. The Nipah virus is making news again after tragic reports that a 12-year-old boy died from the virus on Sept. 5 in Kerala's Kozhikode district. He had been admitted to a private hospital after running a high fever and showing symptoms of encephalitis — swelling of the brain. About This Series Over the next week, we'll be looking back at some of our favorite Goats and Soda stories to see "whatever happened to ..." While figuring out how to prevent and treat Nipah virus infection is very much a work in progress, there have been advances. Nonetheless, Nipah remains a concern, not just in India but for the entire planet. The World Health Organization classifies it as a "virus of concern" for future epidemics because "each year it spills over from its animal reservoir into humans," says Dr. Stephen Luby, a professor of infectious disease at Stanford University. And when humans are infected, it can be transmitted from person to person. But the virus is not as transmissible as some other viruses. "There are occasional Nipah superspreaders who infect a lot of people," says Luby. "But the average transmission rate is less than one person per infection. "However, each time a person is infected, the virus is in an environment that selects for human adaptation and transmissibility. The risk is that a new strain that is more efficiently transmitted person to person could generate a devastating outbreak. Indeed, since 70% of people who are infected with Nipah virus die, such a strain could represent the worst pandemic humanity has ever faced." That's why, he says, it's important to "continue to invest in strategies to reduce the risk of spillover and to develop countermeasures across a range of high-risk pathogens." Following the boy's death, public health authorities swung into action, contact-tracing friends, family members and health workers. They identified and isolated 251 people, including 30 close family members. Eleven samples from those in close contact with the boy were sent for testing, and on Sept. 8, they were negative. But how this child contracted Nipah is still unclear. "It's really difficult to establish the cause of the boy's illness," says Dr. Thekkumkara Surendran Anish, associate professor of community medicine at the Government Medical College in Thiruvananthapuram. "The infected patient was just too sick to tell us anything about what he ate or did. That's why it's all speculation." In the two strains of Nipah encountered so far — originating in Malaysia in 1999 and later in Bangladesh — pigs and fruit bats are believed to have been the intermediary hosts. "One plausible theory is that those who've been infected [in Kerala] ate food or fruit contaminated with bat saliva or excreta," says Anish. "We have a very clear understanding of how Nipah virus moves from fruit bats into people," says Luby. "Bats are attracted to raw date palm sap that is harvested during the wintertime. When people drink raw date palm sap that has been contaminated by bats, they are at risk of contracting Nipah." The World Health Organization calls the drink a "likely source" of outbreaks in humans in India and Bangladesh. When reports emerged that the boy in Kerala could have possibly contracted Nipah from eating rambutan — a tropical fruit with thick red spines resembling lychee that grew around his home — sales of the fruit plunged in Kerala. But the fear that the fruit was the cause of the disease is pure speculation and without evidence, experts say. While it is possible to recover, the virus has a high fatality rate. In 2018, when Nipah emerged for the first time in Kerala, only two of the 19 infected people survived. When it was detected again in 2019, a 23-year-old man was infected, but swift isolation ensured the virus did not spread to others in his community. The patient survived. "[With] COVID, you are most infectious before the symptoms set in," says Anish. "Once they do, your ability to infect other people wanes. But that's not the case with Nipah. When the symptoms set in, you start spreading the virus." In areas more prone to Nipah infections (Bangladesh, Malaysia, India and Singapore), being aware of this can help, he says. Since the identification of the case this year, COVID-19 precautions have helped control the spread of Nipah in Kerala, says Dr. K. Puthiyaveettil Aravindan, a former professor of pathology at the Government Medical College, Kozhikode: "Hospital workers were already kitted out in full protective equipment. People were masked." Since the virus is spread human to human through bodily fluids, physical distancing and masking helped. With all the concerns about Nipah, efforts to develop a vaccine are ongoing. "There are several promising Nipah virus [vaccine] candidates that have demonstrated high efficacy in animals," says Luby. In addition, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations is supporting human trials of multiple vaccine candidates. One study on vaccines, a preprint, focused on the effectiveness of ChAdOx1 — a multipurpose vaccine vector that can be customized to carry DNA from a wide variety of pathogens. In a trial on African green monkeys, it proved effective when tailored against the Nipah virus. While vaccine candidates are still in clinical trials, there's also a nonpatented drug called M 102.4 developed by Christopher C. Broder, a professor of immunology and microbiology at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Maryland. It's a monoclonal antibody that can attach to proteins in a virus and render it ineffective. "Suppose you get a massive dose of a virus in your body. It's a matter of time before the pathological process begins and it damages your cells," says Anish. "You don't have time to depend on the immune reaction generated by a vaccine at that point. In this narrow window [before you develop symptoms], you can use an agent that can neutralize the virus." During Kerala's 2018 outbreak, M 102.4 was flown in from Queensland, Australia, for use on an emergency basis. At the time, it had not been tested on humans. Since then, initial tests in humans have been successful. In a study published by The Lancet Infectious Diseases, phase I clinical trials in humans have shown that the drug can neutralize Nipah. In case of any major outbreak, health authorities in Kerala and elsewhere now can use the antibody to get it under control, says Aravindan. It's likely that other Indian states may be affected too. "Kerala can't be the only hot spot," says Aravindan. "It's possible that the health system in other states may not be catching these infections at all." He also has concerns about future spread. Genetic changes in the virus are likely, making hosts out of more species of bats and making the virus more transmissible among humans, he says. He adds that Nipah could emerge as a global problem similar to COVID-19 due to international trade, global travel and climate change that causes bats to seek new habitats. For those reasons, he says, it's imperative "to analyze which species [of bats] could be infected, the places they're located" and whether there might be additional intermediary host animals. For now, the Nipah virus scare in Kerala seems to be under control. But "as long as there's a lot we don't know, the possibility of an epidemic can't be ruled out," Anish says. Kamala Thiagarajan is a freelance journalist based in Madurai, India, who has written for The International New York Times, BBC Travel and Forbes India. You can follow her on Twitter: @Kamal_t. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Adela Wu Counseling a newly diagnosed HIV patient in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Tommy Trenchard for NPR hide caption Counseling a newly diagnosed HIV patient in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2015, global groups set ambitious goals to stem the HIV/AIDS epidemic. They aimed to bring down the number of new cases, particularly among children, teens and young women, by 2020 – and to bring up the number of people on HIV treatment. On July 21, the final report came out. No targets were met. This 5-year campaign is called "Start Free, Stay Free, AIDS Free" and was run by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Here's a rundown of some of their key targets and the estimated outcomes: Dr. Mary Mahy, who is lead of the epidemiology team at UNAIDS and one of the report authors, is particularly alarmed by the HIV medication statistics for children. In 2019, the group estimated 940,000 children would be on anti-retroviral drugs compared to 920,000 in 2020. "We've always [previously] managed to get more children on treatment," she says "That's what's shocking and upsetting me." The Pandemic Hurt — But It Wasn't The Only Obstacle So what happened? Mahy and others familiar with the HIV/AIDS epidemic cite several possible reasons for the failure to meet its targets. The report notes that the global COVID-19 crisis has "severely disrupted" the delivery of services to youth as well as older populations. But there are other pre-pandemic issues: It has always been difficult to identify children and adults who are infected and need treatment. The report authors also believe governments around the world are not doing enough to make a dent in the epidemic. Dr. Chewe Luo, associate director and chief of the HIV/AIDS section at UNICEF, believes, "To improve access to treatment starts with being able to identify the infected." Especially during the pandemic, it's been hard to test pregnant women to see if they're HIV-positive and then to provide treatment to prevent their children from being infected. The report's data suggests that 99,000 children were infected with HIV in 2020 because pregnant or breastfeeding HIV-positive women didn't get diagnosed and treated. Babies born with HIV are at extremely high risk for dying from AIDS. Without treatment, half of these children die by age 2. Finding and testing breastfeeding women is another important step in ending the HIV epidemic for children. Children infected through breastfeeding are easily missed because they seem fairly healthy to their families; their immune systems are already stronger and better at fighting infections than a newborn's. So these kids don't show up to doctors with characteristic AIDS-defining symptoms like failure to grow, chronic severe diarrhea and repeated bouts of pneumonia. The children might grow up and not even know their HIV status until they become sexually active themselves, says Dr. Gilles Van Cutsem, current lead of the international AIDS working group and a senior HIV adviser for Doctors Without Borders not affiliated with the report. And then there's the issue of identifying kids who need HIV treatment. Even if they are tested, it can take days for diagnostic results to come back — and families don't always follow up to get the diagnosis, making it hard to start treatment. Luo also thinks that governments and donors simply aren't doing enough to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic in kids. Faster Testing Yet the report authors aren't resigned to a future of minimal progress. They are excited about several strategies already in practice that, if ramped up, could turn the tide in the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Family testing is one such approach that could lead to more accurate diagnosis of children. Here's how it works: Parents who are picking up their own HIV medicines are asked to bring their children along to be tested. Experts think scaling up family testing can help get more at-risk children screened, especially in countries with high rates of HIV infection. The report also describes new, simple "point-of-care" testing machines that make fast, same-day HIV results possible at clinics. These machines have been perfected over the last 3 to 4 years, according to Luo. Now more financial support is needed for countries to obtain and roll out these machines. Tastier (And Less Onerous) Kid Meds HIV-positive children and adolescents also struggle with taking HIV medicines, which can taste horrible and cause vomiting and skin rashes. In addition, parents have to keep track of multiple daily medications, and some are hard to administer. "Syrup [medications] are nightmares," says Van Cutsem, since parents need to keep them fresh in fridges (which aren't often in the home) and must measure the syrup into a syringe to drip into a baby's mouth. A new medication called dolutegravir has been transforming the battle against HIV and AIDS for both kids and adults. Dolutegravir comes in a berry flavor and dissolves in water, making it easier for kids to take. In 2020, the World Health Organization officially recommended dolutegravir as first-line treatment for everyone, including infants as young as 4 weeks old. The ODYSSEY clinical trial, conducted in several countries, just concluded in June 2021 with positive results too. This study showed that HIV-infected children and adolescents who took dolutegravir-based regimens had better control of their disease and more suppressed viral load. Van Cutsem says that dolutegravir is "positive news for once," boding well for the countries that have adopted it as the backbone of their HIV treatment. The report also highlights how communities can help bridge the gaps in finding and treating kids and teens with HIV. Countries like Eswatini and Malawi lean on the important relationships between mothers, who can be sources of comfort and advice for each other. The continuing global growth of cell phone usage has enabled many women to connect with each other. Acting as "mentor mothers," they provide much-needed support for women who are just learning how to navigate their own diagnosis and treatment, Luo says. "They're a testimony—'I'm fine. My baby is fine. See!' It's absolutely phenomenal to watch." Now What? Though the 2020 results of the "Start Free, Stay Free, AIDS Free" final report are disappointing, the groups involved have set even more ambitious targets for 2025 — to not only reverse current trends but make true progress. They propose a "95-95-95" Global AIDS Strategy to get back on track in wiping out the HIV/AIDS epidemic among children, adolescents and young women. Their targets for 2025 include: And they want to persuade local governments and communities around the world to do more to end this global health threat. "When it comes to children," reflects Luo, "that voice is void sometimes at the country level." Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Brian Mann McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health have agreed to a $1.1 billion settlement with the state of New York over their alleged role in opioid distribution. Jeff Chiu/AP hide caption McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health have agreed to a $1.1 billion settlement with the state of New York over their alleged role in opioid distribution. A landmark national opioid settlement now being finalized would provide as much as $26 billion to states and communities struggling to respond to the opioid crisis. That's according to a team of attorneys representing governments involved in the litigation who briefed reporters Tuesday. Sources have told NPR a final deal could be reached as early as this week, but details are still being negotiated. "This is a complex document," said Joe Rice with the firm Motley Rice, which represents dozens of state and local governments that have sued the drug industry. "You have to be very cautious that you don't have unintended consequences. I don't think there's anything I would call critical issues but there are some issues that have to get resolved." The settlement's funds would be paid out over a 17-year period by the drug maker Johnson & Johnson as well as three of the nation's largest drug distributors: AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson. The firms face a wave of lawsuits for their alleged role in spurring opioid distribution at a time when addiction and overdose deaths were surging. According to attorneys involved in the talks, the deal would also mean much closer scrutiny for drug firms distributing and selling highly addictive pain pills. "As a result of this settlement, if it goes forward the light switch is flipped on," said Paul Geller with Robins Geller Rudman & Dowd. He said companies would have to share opioid distribution data with each other and with regulators to prevent over-supplying communities with pain pills. A final deal would be sent to state and local governments which would decide whether to opt in. The scale of payouts would be linked to the number of jurisdictions that agree to settle lawsuits. At least one hard-hit state has already signaled doubts about the deal. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey sent a statement to NPR Monday afternoon saying his state "is very likely a no on these agreements." According to Morrisey, the structure of the payouts would favor large states without properly taking into account which communities faced the biggest wave of addiction and overdose deaths. "I will keep fighting to protect West Virginia and will not allow larger states to dictate how we hold defendants accountable for their actions," Morrisey said in his statement. The drug firms have consistently denied any wrongdoing and declined to comment on negotiations except to say that they're working toward a global settlement. While a national resolution for opioid lawsuits isn't yet final, New York's attorney general announced early Monday that her state has reached a $1.1 billion settlement with the opioid distributors. "McKesson and Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen distributed this poison, these opioids, without regard to human life and without any consideration of the national crisis," said New York Attorney General Letitia James in an interview with NPR. The companies, which rank among the largest corporations in the U.S., will spread out their payments to New York over the next 17 years. They will again admit no wrongdoing. In a joint statement, the firms said they expect the deal to resolve all opioid lawsuits in New York state. "While the companies strongly dispute the allegations at issue in the trial, they believe this resolution will allow the companies to focus their attention and resources on the safe and secure delivery of medications and therapies while delivering meaningful relief to affected communities," their statement said. Last month, the New York attorney general's office settled separately with Johnson & Johnson for payments expected to total roughly $230 million. This development came as the companies faced the prospect of a lengthy civil trial in New York. A separate trial against the drug distributors is underway in West Virginia, with closing arguments expected next week. A federal opioid trial against pharmacy chains, including CVS and Walgreens, is scheduled to begin in October in Ohio. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 500,000 Americans have died during the opioid epidemic, which began with the aggressive sale and marketing of prescription painkillers in the late 1990s. Preliminary data from the CDC found overdose deaths hit a deadly new record last year with roughly 93,000 fatalities. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Brian Mann During the War on Drugs, the Brownsville neighborhood in New York City saw some of the highest rates of incarceration in the U.S., as Black and Hispanic men were sent to prison for lengthy prison sentences, often for low-level, nonviolent drug crimes. Spencer Platt/Getty Images hide caption During the War on Drugs, the Brownsville neighborhood in New York City saw some of the highest rates of incarceration in the U.S., as Black and Hispanic men were sent to prison for lengthy prison sentences, often for low-level, nonviolent drug crimes. When Aaron Hinton walked through the housing project in Brownsville on a recent summer afternoon, he voiced love and pride for this tightknit, but troubled working-class neighborhood in New York City where he grew up. He pointed to a community garden, the lush plots of vegetables and flowers tended by volunteers, and to the library where he has led after-school programs for kids. But he also expressed deep rage and sorrow over the scars left by the nation's 50-year-long War on Drugs. "What good is it doing for us?" Hinton asked. As the United States' harsh approach to drug use and addiction hits the half-century milestone, this question is being asked by a growing number of lawmakers, public health experts and community leaders. In many parts of the U.S., some of the most severe policies implemented during the drug war are being scaled back or scrapped altogether. Hinton, a 37-year-old community organizer and activist, said the reckoning is long overdue. He described watching Black men like himself get caught up in drugs year after year and swept into the nation's burgeoning prison system. "They're spending so much money on these prisons to keep kids locked up," Hinton said, shaking his head. "They don't even spend a fraction of that money sending them to college or some kind of school." Aaron Hinton, a 37-year-old veteran activist and community organizer, said it's clear Brownsville needed help coping with the cocaine, heroin and other drug-related crime that took root here in the 1970s and 1980s. His own family was devastated by addiction. Brian Mann hide caption Aaron Hinton, a 37-year-old veteran activist and community organizer, said it's clear Brownsville needed help coping with the cocaine, heroin and other drug-related crime that took root here in the 1970s and 1980s. His own family was devastated by addiction. Hinton has lived his whole life under the drug war. He said Brownsville needed help coping with cocaine, heroin and drug-related crime that took root here in the 1970s and 1980s. His own family was scarred by addiction. "I've known my mom to be a drug user my whole entire life," Hinton said. "She chose to run the streets and left me with my great-grandmother." Four years ago, his mom overdosed and died after taking prescription painkillers, part of the opioid epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Hinton said her death sealed his belief that tough drug war policies and aggressive police tactics would never make his family or his community safer. During months of interviews for this project, NPR found a growing consensus across the political spectrum — including among some in law enforcement — that the drug war simply didn't work. "We have been involved in the failed War on Drugs for so very long," said retired Maj. Neill Franklin, a veteran with the Baltimore City Police and the Maryland State Police who led drug task forces for years. He now believes the response to drugs should be handled by doctors and therapists, not cops and prison guards. "It does not belong in our wheelhouse," Franklin said during a press conference this week. Aaron Hinton has lived his whole life under the drug war. He has watched many Black men like himself get caught up in drugs year after year, swept into the nation's criminal justice system. Brian Mann/NPR hide caption Aaron Hinton has lived his whole life under the drug war. He has watched many Black men like himself get caught up in drugs year after year, swept into the nation's criminal justice system. Some prosecutors have also condemned the drug war model, describing it as ineffective and racially biased. "Over the last 50 years, we've unfortunately seen the 'War on Drugs' be used as an excuse to declare war on people of color, on poor Americans and so many other marginalized groups," said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a statement sent to NPR. On Tuesday, two House Democrats introduced legislation that would decriminalize all drugs in the U.S., shifting the national response to a public health model. The measure appears to have zero chance of passage. But in much of the country, disillusionment with the drug war has already led to repeal of some of the most punitive policies, including mandatory lengthy prison sentences for nonviolent drug users. In recent years, voters and politicians in 17 states — including red-leaning Alaska and Montana — and the District of Columbia have backed the legalization of recreational marijuana, the most popular illicit drug, a trend that once seemed impossible. Last November, Oregon became the first state to decriminalize small quantities of all drugs, including heroin and methamphetamines. Many critics say the course correction is too modest and too slow. "The war on drugs was an absolute miscalculation of human behavior," said Kassandra Frederique, who heads the Drug Policy Alliance, a national group that advocates for total drug decriminalization. She said the criminal justice model failed to address the underlying need for jobs, health care and safe housing that spur addiction. Indeed, much of the drug war's architecture remains intact. Federal spending on drugs — much of it devoted to interdiction — is expected to top $37 billion this year. The U.S. still incarcerates more people than any other nation, with nearly half of the inmates in federal prison held on drug charges. But the nation has seen a significant decline in state and federal inmate populations, down by a quarter from the peak of 1.6 million in 2009 to roughly 1.2 million last year. There has also been substantial growth in public funding for health care and treatment for people who use drugs, due in large part to passage of the Affordable Care Act. "The best outcomes come when you treat the substance use disorder [as a medical condition] as opposed to criminalizing that person and putting them in jail or prison," said Dr. Nora Volkow, who has been head of the National Institute of Drug Abuse since 2003. Volkow said data shows clearly that the decision half a century ago to punish Americans who struggle with addiction was "devastating ... not just to them but actually to their families." Wounds left by the drug war go far beyond the roughly 20.3 million people who have a substance use disorder. The campaign — which by some estimates cost more than $1 trillion — also exacerbated racial divisions and infringed on civil liberties in ways that transformed American society. Frederique, with the Drug Policy Alliance, said the Black Lives Matter movement was inspired in part by cases that revealed a dangerous attitude toward drugs among police. In Derek Chauvin's murder trial, the former officer's defense claimed aggressive police tactics were justified because of small amounts of fentanyl in George Floyd's body. Critics described the argument as an attempt to "weaponize" Floyd's substance use disorder and jurors found Chauvin guilty. Breonna Taylor, meanwhile, was shot and killed by police in her home during a drug raid. She wasn't a suspect in the case. "We need to end the drug war not just for our loved ones that are struggling with addiction, but we need to remove the excuse that that is why law enforcement gets to invade our space ... or kill us," Frederique said. The United States has waged aggressive campaigns against substance use before, most notably during alcohol Prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s. The modern drug war began with a symbolic address to the nation by President Richard Nixon on June 17, 1971. Speaking from the White House, Nixon declared the federal government would now treat drug addiction as "public enemy No. 1," suggesting substance use might be vanquished once and for all. "In order to fight and defeat this enemy," Nixon said, "it is necessary to wage a new all-out offensive." President Richard Nixon's speech on June 17, 1971, marked the symbolic start of the modern drug war. In the decades that followed Democrats and Republicans embraced ever-tougher laws penalizing people with addiction. Studies show from the outset drug laws were implemented with a stark racial bias, leading to unprecedented levels of mass incarceration for Black and brown men. As recently as 2018, Black men were nearly six times more likely than white men to be locked up in state or federal correctional facilities, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Researchers have long concluded the pattern has far-reaching impacts on Black families, making it harder to find employment and housing, while also preventing many people of color with drug records from voting. In a 1994 interview published in Harper's Magazine, Nixon adviser John Ehrlichman suggested racial animus was among the motives shaping the drug war. "We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the [Vietnam] War or Black," Ehrlichman said. "But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities." Despite those concerns, Democrats and Republicans partnered on the drug war decade after decade, approving ever-more-severe laws, creating new state and federal bureaucracies to interdict drugs, and funding new armies of police and federal agents. At times, the fight on America's streets resembled an actual war, especially in poor communities and communities of color. Police units carried out drug raids with military-style hardware that included body armor, assault weapons and tanks equipped with battering rams. President Richard Nixon explaining aspects of the special message sent to the Congress on June 17, 1971, asking for an extra $155 million for a new program to combat the use of drugs. He labeled drug abuse "a national emergency." Harvey Georges/AP hide caption President Richard Nixon explaining aspects of the special message sent to the Congress on June 17, 1971, asking for an extra $155 million for a new program to combat the use of drugs. He labeled drug abuse "a national emergency." "What we need is another D-Day, not another Vietnam, not another limited war fought on the cheap," declared then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., in 1989. Biden, who chaired the influential Senate Judiciary Committee, later co-authored the controversial 1994 crime bill that helped fund a vast new complex of state and federal prisons, which remains the largest in the world. On the campaign trail in 2020, Biden stopped short of repudiating his past drug policy ideas but said he now believes no American should be incarcerated for addiction. He also endorsed national decriminalization of marijuana. While few policy experts believe the drug war will come to a conclusive end any time soon, the end of bipartisan backing for punitive drug laws is a significant development. Adding to pressure for change is the fact that despite a half-century of interdiction, America's streets are flooded with more potent and dangerous drugs than ever before — primarily methamphetamines and the synthetic opioid fentanyl. "Back in the day, when we would see 5, 10 kilograms of meth, that would make you a hero if you made a seizure like that," said Matthew Donahue, the head of operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration. "Now it's common for us to see 100-, 200- and 300-kilogram seizures of meth," he added. "It doesn't make a dent to the price." Efforts to disrupt illegal drug supplies suffered yet another major blow last year after Mexican officials repudiated drug war tactics and began blocking most interdiction efforts south of the U.S.-Mexico border. "It's a national health threat, it's a national safety threat," Donahue told NPR. Last year, drug overdoses hit a devastating new record of 90,000 deaths, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Critics say the effectiveness of the drug war model has been called into question for another reason: the nation's prescription opioid epidemic. Beginning in the late 1990s, some of the nation's largest drug companies and pharmacy chains invested heavily in the opioid business. State and federal regulators and law enforcement failed to intervene as communities were flooded with legally manufactured painkillers, including Oxycontin. "They were utterly failing to take into account diversion," said West Virginia Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who sued the DEA for not curbing opioid production quotas sooner. "It's as close to a criminal act as you can find," Morrisey said. Courtney Hessler, a reporter for The (Huntington) Herald-Dispatch in West Virgina, has covered the opioid epidemic. As a child she wound up in foster care after her mother became addicted to opioids. "You know there's thousands of children that grew up the way that I did. These people want answers," Hessler told NPR. Brian Mann/NPR hide caption Courtney Hessler, a reporter for The (Huntington) Herald-Dispatch in West Virgina, has covered the opioid epidemic. As a child she wound up in foster care after her mother became addicted to opioids. "You know there's thousands of children that grew up the way that I did. These people want answers," Hessler told NPR. One of the epicenters of the prescription opioid epidemic was Huntington, a small city in West Virginia along the Ohio River hit hard by the loss of factory and coal jobs. "It was pretty bad. Eighty-one million opioid pills over an eight-year period came into this area," said Courtney Hessler, a reporter with The (Huntington) Herald-Dispatch. Public health officials say 1 in 10 residents in the area still battle addiction. Hessler herself wound up in foster care after her mother struggled with opioids. In recent months, she has reported on a landmark opioid trial that will test who — if anyone — will be held accountable for drug policies that failed to keep families and communities safe. "I think it's important. You know there's thousands of children that grew up the way that I did," Hessler said. "These people want answers." A needle disposal box at the Cabell-Huntington Health Department sits in the front parking lot in 2019 in Huntington, W.Va. The city is experiencing a surge in HIV cases related to intravenous drug use following a recent opioid crisis in the state. Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images hide caption A needle disposal box at the Cabell-Huntington Health Department sits in the front parking lot in 2019 in Huntington, W.Va. The city is experiencing a surge in HIV cases related to intravenous drug use following a recent opioid crisis in the state. During dozens of interviews, community leaders told NPR that places like Huntington, W.Va., and Brownsville, N.Y., will recover from the drug war and rebuild. They predicted many parts of the country will accelerate the shift toward a public health model for addiction: treating drug users more often like patients with a chronic illness and less often as criminals. But ending wars is hard and stigma surrounding drug use, heightened by a half-century of punitive policies, remains deeply entrenched. Aaron Hinton, the activist in Brownsville, said it may take decades to unwind the harm done to his neighborhood. "It's one step forward, two steps back," Hinton said. "But I remain hopeful. Why? Because what else am I going to do?" Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Noel King It's been four decades since the first U.S. AIDS cases were reported. Some people who experienced the early years of the crisis say the effects of denialism have carried into the COVID-19 pandemic. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Forty years ago today, some people opened a newspaper - a paper newspaper then - and read the first article published about cases of AIDS in the United States. It was a milestone in public awareness and a milestone of denial. Government officials, world leaders, even medical experts questioned the facts. That story from decades ago has carried over into the mistrust of science today. This story, we should warn, lasts 11 minutes and contains language that may not be appropriate for kids. Here's Noel King.NOEL KING, BYLINE: Before Dr. Lawrence Mass made history, the kind of history no one really wants to make, he was just a 30-something guy who'd gone, like so many others, to find a life in New York City.LAWRENCE MASS: It was dilapidated. It was decrepit.KING: It was the late '70s. He used his savings to buy an apartment in Chelsea.MASS: My mother came and visited, and she saw this apartment and me in it. And she looked around, and she started crying. What has my crazy son done? He's taken all of his savings and bought into this situation.KING: And then her son found his people. Dr. Mass, Larry, is gay.MASS: We were still an outlaw culture. We had no civil liberties protections of any kind. There was this little gay liberation movement with these events, and there were these things happening - bars and bathhouses and all this kind of thing.KING: Was there, like, also interesting, fun stuff going on, like drugs and sex and rock 'n' roll, like the...MASS: All of the above.KING: Then one day in 1981, a friend who worked in an emergency room called him.MASS: She was very concerned. And she said, there's gay men in New York City intensive care units.KING: He thought it was bizarre. Larry is a medical doctor. He also wrote articles for the gay press. So he could at least look into it. And on May 18, 1981, he published an article in the New York Native...(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Last week, there were rumors that an exotic new disease had hit the gay community in New York.KING: ...About this mystery illness. The headline - "Disease Rumors Largely Unfounded." Yes, he wrote, some gay men with severely compromised immune systems had gotten an infection but only 11 of them. And there he made history. It was the first-ever article about AIDS in a U.S. publication. He tried to stop a rumor and prevent a panic. And then more gay men got sick. More died. More got frantic. What was causing it?MASS: People didn't know whether it was saliva or fellatio. There were questions about poppers, amyl nitrites and people engaging in fist-[expletive].KING: And because science couldn't say for sure...MASS: I was having a lot of casual sex, including unprotected, unsafe sex. And I started curtailing that. We were, you know, hoping for the best. I knew, of course..KING: Was that really it? I'm interrupting because...MASS: Yeah, go ahead.KING: ...There is some part of me that is astonished. You are a physician who hears about some sort of disease or virus that is affecting gay men. You have no idea what it is. And your response is, I'm going to head out to the bar and hope I just dodge it?MASS: The advice that we got was limit the number of partners with whom you have sex and try to make sure they're healthy. People were already urging condom use, but that was in some dispute.KING: I'm curious - as you're still going out to the bathhouses in the early '80s...MASS: Right, well, what you're...KING: ...What is going through your mind?MASS: What you're - you know, that was true. And basically, what you've caught me in is I was speaking out of both sides of my mouth.KING: He was in denial. He'd spent years in the closet. And now, finally, he was out living. And science hadn't settled on an answer. So denial. There was denial among so many people who wanted to keep living, some of whom did at the expense of staying alive. This may right now be reminding you of another virus. Anyhow, it took three years for scientists to figure out what was causing AIDS.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)MARGARET HECKLER: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. First, the probable cause of AIDS has been found.KING: A virus, human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. And now one form of denial was over, but another one was just starting. This denial would change science right up to the present day. HIV is a tricky virus. To explain how, here's Michael Specter.MICHAEL SPECTER: Are you vaccinated?KING: I got my first vaccine shot yesterday. Are you vaccinated?SPECTER: Yeah, I'm fully vaccinated for a while. This is the benefit of being too old.KING: (Laughter).He's a reporter for The New Yorker, and he's covered HIV and AIDS for years. The confusion about AIDS starts with antibodies.SPECTER: They protect you. That's their whole purpose.KING: When a doctor gives you a vaccine, your immune system jumps on it, makes antibodies, knocks that virus out.SPECTER: In all of human history, we've had all these viruses. Edward Jenner got cowpox into a dairymaid. It made antibodies, and it protected her. And this has been the way it's been. And there are no exceptions. There have been no known exceptions.KING: Until HIV. Really sick people would turn up at the doctor's, and the doctor would test for HIV antibodies. The antibodies were there, but the people would get sicker, not better. And so some really smart scientists thought if people have antibodies for HIV, it is not HIV that's making them sick. It has to be something else. The most prominent of these was a doctor named Peter Duesberg. He was a professor of molecular biology at Berkeley and a leader in the field of cancer research. In 1987, Duesberg's denialism went semi-mainstream. A journal, Perspectives in Cancer Research, published his theory. HIV does not cause AIDS. And a year later, there was a big scientific summit about AIDS in D.C. Michael Specter says it was held in large part to put Duesberg's theories to rest. Specter was there reporting for The Washington Post.SPECTER: I asked him specifically at that forum, if you're so convinced that HIV does not cause AIDS, you have two daughters - why don't you just infect them? And he did not answer. I was angry, and I think it's not what you would call the finest example of a balanced journalist in that moment. And, you know, kids were dying. People were dying all over the place. And he was important. He'd done a lot of research. He was not a nobody.KING: Did people put him on the news? Did he have, you know, radio hour with Dr. Duesberg?SPECTER: Yeah, he was on the news. I mean, come on. You are a high-minded journalist. I like to think I am, too. But let's face it - when you have a famous researcher saying the opposite of what everyone else says, you put them on the air. And you'd be crazy not to.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)DONALD TRUMP: And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning?KING: NPR aired that. OK, back to Duesberg. Among scientists, his was still a minority view. New medicines started to get the virus under control in the U.S. in the late '90s. In South Africa, though, it was a different story. AIDS was burning through that country. And the president, Thabo Mbeki, was frantically looking for a reason why.SPECTER: Do you know how Thabo Mbeki found Peter Duesberg?KING: No.SPECTER: He was looking on this somewhat brand-new thing called the Internet. And he ran across the statements of Duesberg. And they were exactly music to his ears.KING: Duesberg's denialism became Thabo Mbeki's.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)THABO MBEKI: How does a virus cause a syndrome? It can't.KING: Instead, poor nutrition caused it and drugs, recreational drugs and also those new drugs that treated HIV. Here is Duesberg in a 1996 documentary.(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED DOCUMENTARY)PETER DUESBERG: You can't expect to take chemical at a dose that gets you so high that you don't sleep anymore. You don't want to eat anymore. And you have 10 or 20 sex partners per night - to expect to be totally inconsequential for your health.KING: Now, does that sound familiar?MASS: People didn't know whether it was saliva or...KING: Peter Duesberg went from writing in respected but relatively arcane science journals in the '80s, then wrote a mass-market book in the '90s, then appeared in that documentary that you can still easily find on the Internet. And then in 2012, he got a spot on Joe Rogan's show.(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE")JOE ROGAN: So HIV is a virus.DUESBERG: Is a virus. It's one of the most harmless type of viruses we know.KING: We reached out to Peter Duesberg for an interview. But through his wife, he declined. So what did all this lead to? A virus that evaded science for years, people who just wanted to go out and live, a scientist who gave them another option? Well, here's what Michael Specter argues.SPECTER: I think the legacy of AIDS denialism is that it raised doubts in a lot of people's minds about whether the consensus that had been arrived at by 99.6% of all scientists was necessarily something they had to listen to. And what we have now is we live in a country where...(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)TRUMP: If you don't test, you don't have any cases.SCOTT ATLAS: Children almost never transmit the disease.JARED KUSHNER: And this is a great success story.LARRY KUDLOW: There is no second wave coming.SPECTER: You know, when I was young, medical authorities were taken as gods, and you just did what they said. And I'm glad that world doesn't exist anymore. But what we have now are people who think they know as much as anyone else, and medical authorities or scientists are treated like any other interest group, like they're the AFL-CIO or the teachers union. We have trouble giving kids flu shots or the basic measles, mumps, rubella shots because so many parents are skeptical of expertise.KING: Expertise tells us a virus doesn't care who you have sex with or how, what drugs you use or whether you think it's real. A virus doesn't want you to get a vaccine or wear a mask. It wants to live. To live, it needs to spread. And with every denial, we send it on out into the world to live.(SOUNDBITE OF JIM-E STACK'S "EVERYTHING TO SAY") STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Forty years ago today, some people opened a newspaper - a paper newspaper then - and read the first article published about cases of AIDS in the United States. It was a milestone in public awareness and a milestone of denial. Government officials, world leaders, even medical experts questioned the facts. That story from decades ago has carried over into the mistrust of science today. This story, we should warn, lasts 11 minutes and contains language that may not be appropriate for kids. Here's Noel King. NOEL KING, BYLINE: Before Dr. Lawrence Mass made history, the kind of history no one really wants to make, he was just a 30-something guy who'd gone, like so many others, to find a life in New York City. LAWRENCE MASS: It was dilapidated. It was decrepit. KING: It was the late '70s. He used his savings to buy an apartment in Chelsea. MASS: My mother came and visited, and she saw this apartment and me in it. And she looked around, and she started crying. What has my crazy son done? He's taken all of his savings and bought into this situation. KING: And then her son found his people. Dr. Mass, Larry, is gay. MASS: We were still an outlaw culture. We had no civil liberties protections of any kind. There was this little gay liberation movement with these events, and there were these things happening - bars and bathhouses and all this kind of thing. KING: Was there, like, also interesting, fun stuff going on, like drugs and sex and rock 'n' roll, like the... MASS: All of the above. KING: Then one day in 1981, a friend who worked in an emergency room called him. MASS: She was very concerned. And she said, there's gay men in New York City intensive care units. KING: He thought it was bizarre. Larry is a medical doctor. He also wrote articles for the gay press. So he could at least look into it. And on May 18, 1981, he published an article in the New York Native... (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Last week, there were rumors that an exotic new disease had hit the gay community in New York. KING: ...About this mystery illness. The headline - "Disease Rumors Largely Unfounded." Yes, he wrote, some gay men with severely compromised immune systems had gotten an infection but only 11 of them. And there he made history. It was the first-ever article about AIDS in a U.S. publication. He tried to stop a rumor and prevent a panic. And then more gay men got sick. More died. More got frantic. What was causing it? MASS: People didn't know whether it was saliva or fellatio. There were questions about poppers, amyl nitrites and people engaging in fist-[expletive]. KING: And because science couldn't say for sure... MASS: I was having a lot of casual sex, including unprotected, unsafe sex. And I started curtailing that. We were, you know, hoping for the best. I knew, of course.. KING: Was that really it? I'm interrupting because... MASS: Yeah, go ahead. KING: ...There is some part of me that is astonished. You are a physician who hears about some sort of disease or virus that is affecting gay men. You have no idea what it is. And your response is, I'm going to head out to the bar and hope I just dodge it? MASS: The advice that we got was limit the number of partners with whom you have sex and try to make sure they're healthy. People were already urging condom use, but that was in some dispute. KING: I'm curious - as you're still going out to the bathhouses in the early '80s... MASS: Right, well, what you're... KING: ...What is going through your mind? MASS: What you're - you know, that was true. And basically, what you've caught me in is I was speaking out of both sides of my mouth. KING: He was in denial. He'd spent years in the closet. And now, finally, he was out living. And science hadn't settled on an answer. So denial. There was denial among so many people who wanted to keep living, some of whom did at the expense of staying alive. This may right now be reminding you of another virus. Anyhow, it took three years for scientists to figure out what was causing AIDS. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) MARGARET HECKLER: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. First, the probable cause of AIDS has been found. KING: A virus, human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. And now one form of denial was over, but another one was just starting. This denial would change science right up to the present day. HIV is a tricky virus. To explain how, here's Michael Specter. MICHAEL SPECTER: Are you vaccinated? KING: I got my first vaccine shot yesterday. Are you vaccinated? SPECTER: Yeah, I'm fully vaccinated for a while. This is the benefit of being too old. KING: (Laughter). He's a reporter for The New Yorker, and he's covered HIV and AIDS for years. The confusion about AIDS starts with antibodies. SPECTER: They protect you. That's their whole purpose. KING: When a doctor gives you a vaccine, your immune system jumps on it, makes antibodies, knocks that virus out. SPECTER: In all of human history, we've had all these viruses. Edward Jenner got cowpox into a dairymaid. It made antibodies, and it protected her. And this has been the way it's been. And there are no exceptions. There have been no known exceptions. KING: Until HIV. Really sick people would turn up at the doctor's, and the doctor would test for HIV antibodies. The antibodies were there, but the people would get sicker, not better. And so some really smart scientists thought if people have antibodies for HIV, it is not HIV that's making them sick. It has to be something else. The most prominent of these was a doctor named Peter Duesberg. He was a professor of molecular biology at Berkeley and a leader in the field of cancer research. In 1987, Duesberg's denialism went semi-mainstream. A journal, Perspectives in Cancer Research, published his theory. HIV does not cause AIDS. And a year later, there was a big scientific summit about AIDS in D.C. Michael Specter says it was held in large part to put Duesberg's theories to rest. Specter was there reporting for The Washington Post. SPECTER: I asked him specifically at that forum, if you're so convinced that HIV does not cause AIDS, you have two daughters - why don't you just infect them? And he did not answer. I was angry, and I think it's not what you would call the finest example of a balanced journalist in that moment. And, you know, kids were dying. People were dying all over the place. And he was important. He'd done a lot of research. He was not a nobody. KING: Did people put him on the news? Did he have, you know, radio hour with Dr. Duesberg? SPECTER: Yeah, he was on the news. I mean, come on. You are a high-minded journalist. I like to think I am, too. But let's face it - when you have a famous researcher saying the opposite of what everyone else says, you put them on the air. And you'd be crazy not to. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) DONALD TRUMP: And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? KING: NPR aired that. OK, back to Duesberg. Among scientists, his was still a minority view. New medicines started to get the virus under control in the U.S. in the late '90s. In South Africa, though, it was a different story. AIDS was burning through that country. And the president, Thabo Mbeki, was frantically looking for a reason why. SPECTER: Do you know how Thabo Mbeki found Peter Duesberg? KING: No. SPECTER: He was looking on this somewhat brand-new thing called the Internet. And he ran across the statements of Duesberg. And they were exactly music to his ears. KING: Duesberg's denialism became Thabo Mbeki's. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) THABO MBEKI: How does a virus cause a syndrome? It can't. KING: Instead, poor nutrition caused it and drugs, recreational drugs and also those new drugs that treated HIV. Here is Duesberg in a 1996 documentary. (SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED DOCUMENTARY) PETER DUESBERG: You can't expect to take chemical at a dose that gets you so high that you don't sleep anymore. You don't want to eat anymore. And you have 10 or 20 sex partners per night - to expect to be totally inconsequential for your health. KING: Now, does that sound familiar? MASS: People didn't know whether it was saliva or... KING: Peter Duesberg went from writing in respected but relatively arcane science journals in the '80s, then wrote a mass-market book in the '90s, then appeared in that documentary that you can still easily find on the Internet. And then in 2012, he got a spot on Joe Rogan's show. (SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE") JOE ROGAN: So HIV is a virus. DUESBERG: Is a virus. It's one of the most harmless type of viruses we know. KING: We reached out to Peter Duesberg for an interview. But through his wife, he declined. So what did all this lead to? A virus that evaded science for years, people who just wanted to go out and live, a scientist who gave them another option? Well, here's what Michael Specter argues. SPECTER: I think the legacy of AIDS denialism is that it raised doubts in a lot of people's minds about whether the consensus that had been arrived at by 99.6% of all scientists was necessarily something they had to listen to. And what we have now is we live in a country where... (SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE) TRUMP: If you don't test, you don't have any cases. SCOTT ATLAS: Children almost never transmit the disease. JARED KUSHNER: And this is a great success story. LARRY KUDLOW: There is no second wave coming. SPECTER: You know, when I was young, medical authorities were taken as gods, and you just did what they said. And I'm glad that world doesn't exist anymore. But what we have now are people who think they know as much as anyone else, and medical authorities or scientists are treated like any other interest group, like they're the AFL-CIO or the teachers union. We have trouble giving kids flu shots or the basic measles, mumps, rubella shots because so many parents are skeptical of expertise. KING: Expertise tells us a virus doesn't care who you have sex with or how, what drugs you use or whether you think it's real. A virus doesn't want you to get a vaccine or wear a mask. It wants to live. To live, it needs to spread. And with every denial, we send it on out into the world to live. (SOUNDBITE OF JIM-E STACK'S "EVERYTHING TO SAY") Copyright © 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

disease

daughters

thabo mbeki

berkeley

Advertisement <iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/05/04/opioid-deaths-pandemic"></iframe> More than 90,000 people died from drug overdoses in the U.S. last year, according to preliminary data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The toll — which is largely comprised of opioid-related deaths — is the highest it has been since the start of the opioid epidemic in the 1990s, a stark reminder of how the COVID-19 pandemic may have exacerbated substance use. In many cities, including Philadelphia, overdose deaths disproportionately affected Black residents. Here & Now's Robin Young speaks with Dr. Utsha Khatri, an emergency medicine physician and fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, where she researches substance use. This segment aired on May 4, 2021. Advertisement

emergency

overdose deaths

disease control

epidemic

Emily Vaughn A child learns to swim in a pond in a rural area of Bangladesh. Zakir Hossain Chowdhury/NurPhoto via Getty Images hide caption A child learns to swim in a pond in a rural area of Bangladesh. In 2015, Bangladesh introduced a policy that makes it mandatory for children to learn to swim. That's one way to deal with the toll of drowning deaths, which claim nearly a quarter of a million lives a year around the world, many of them youngsters. That's not all that Bangladesh is doing. In April, the country joined forces with Ireland to put forth a U.N. resolution committing member state governments to make greater efforts to combat death by drowning. And it named July 25 as the annual U.N. day for drowning prevention. Under the resolution, which was co-sponsored by 81 member states, signees agree to raise public awareness and develop a national strategy to reduce drowning deaths. It's a global problem — but there are certain regions where the toll is greater. According to a regional report from WHO published on July 22, over 144,000 people drowned in the Asia Pacific region in 2019. That's nearly two thirds of all drowning deaths. A 2014 report states that the drowning rates in low- and middle-income countries are nearly 3.5 times higher than in high-income countries. Climate change is making matters worse. "More frequent and extreme weather events can lead to more regular and intense floods, increasing populations' exposure to potentially hazardous interactions with water," according to a WHO statement. To learn what steps are already being taken to prevent drowning in one of the countries most impacted, we spoke with Dr. Aminur Rahman, drowning prevention director at the Bangladesh-based Centre for Injury Prevention and Research (CIPRB). This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. In the midst of this horrifying global pandemic, how did the U.N. decide this issue is important enough to warrant a resolution? This pandemic is a new thing. It's only been around for the past year and a half. Drowning is a silent epidemic that's been in place for ages. This U.N. resolution is a wake-up call for all nations that don't have lifesaving national strategies in places. Why are drowning deaths still such a daunting public health problem? What are the biggest barriers? Right now people in low- and middle-income countries generally don't have the skills to rescue a drowning victim. They probably haven't learned how to swim or how to perform CPR. Even medical professionals at hospitals are often not properly trained to handle drowning cases. The biggest barrier in Bangladesh is that there's a widespread perception that nothing can be done — that if someone drowns it's God's will. So the lack of awareness that this is an issue of great magnitude that can be combated is a big problem. What strategies are being utilized to prevent drowning? My colleague and I conducted surveys [of hundreds of thousands of people] here in Bangladesh and we found that about 80% of the drowning deaths here occur for children under 10 years old. For the older age group, ages 5 through 9, we are teaching swimming in local ponds. We also teach them how to do a "dry rescue" for other children from the safety of the bank: throwing them a stick or a rope or something for them to float on and then calling for help. [His organization reports that as of 2014 340,000 children have taken part in its SwimSafe program.] Children are at risk of drowning when floods strike. Above: Monsoon rains caused this February 2014 flood in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Mohammad Asad/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images hide caption Children are at risk of drowning when floods strike. Above: Monsoon rains caused this February 2014 flood in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. One 6-year-old child who attended our program was caught with his family in the flood of 2014. Their courtyard completely flooded, and they put all of their belongings and family members in a boat, and it capsized. The boy was able to swim for some distance to safety, completely independently. The rest of the family survived as well. Another one of our graduates is now competing in national swimming competitions. He could be at the Olympics someday, who knows! Your research shows that drowning accounts for 42% of all deaths of children ages 1 through 4 in Bangladesh. What can be done for children in this age range? Better supervision. It's like a vaccination against drowning. We established community daycare centers where children ages 1 through 4 can go from 9 a.m. till 1 p.m. (when parents are most likely to be distracted by household activities) where they also participate in early childhood stimulation activities that help them with linguistic, emotional and cognitive development. Since we started in 2012 we have created 2,500 daycare centers in 10 subdistricts. But we are still reaching only a very small percentage of the 163 million people who live in this country. We are working with our institutional partners to scale up. You mentioned CPR earlier. Is that something you teach as well? We teach CPR to children ages 7 and up. We find that even children this young can learn the skills quite well and utilize them when needed. One of the girls who learned CPR, a 7 year old, had a younger brother of about 3 years old who fell into a pond. Here in Bangladesh if you walk about 20 meters you will find a water body that families use for household chores, and the children can slip away while the parents aren't looking. An older person found the child and dragged him out from the water. The adult was going to use his region's typical, but harmful, strategies to revive the boy, like forcing him to vomit. But the girl had the adult lay her brother on the ground. She gave him five rescue breaths and started compressing the chest. She saved her little brother. Her parents were really happy. Does this work hold personal significance for you? When I was in grade 10 one of my classmates, who was three years junior to me, drowned during a school picnic. He was an only child. Because I was the school captain I had to organize a mourning session in the school and that was really painful for me. That was my first experience as an eyewitness to a dead body. In 2000 I came in contact with the man who is now my boss at the CIPRB, Dr. Fazlur Rahman. His Ph.D. research found that in one subdistrict of Bangladesh 25% of children's deaths were from drowning. I asked him what the national figure was, and he said no one knows. That triggered me. I immediately thought back to that childhood experience. My colleague and I found that 30,000 children under 18 in Bangladesh die due to injury, and over half of them from drowning. We thought: We need to do something. In Bangladesh there is a big institute called the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research. It's very renowned. People all over the world come here to learn about diarrhea and its control measures. We identified that in 2004-5 there were 3,500 annual deaths due to diarrhea. Why should there not be a center that could deal with preventing 30,000 deaths? My colleague and I approached the government but they would not fund it. So we left our jobs and developed it independently. My education, my work and my personal story all relate to each other, and I'm passionate in doing drowning prevention. Emily Vaughn is a freelance reporter and audio producer based in Washington, D.C. Her Twitter account is @emilyannevaughn Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

diarrhea

epidemic

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By  Rachel Treisman Danish health authorities announced Wednesday that the country will continue its COVID-19 vaccine rollout without the shot made by AstraZeneca, citing its possible link to rare blood clotting events, the availability of other vaccines and the "fact that the COVID-19 epidemic in Denmark is currently under control." Dirk Waem/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images hide caption Danish health authorities announced Wednesday that the country will continue its COVID-19 vaccine rollout without the shot made by AstraZeneca, citing its possible link to rare blood clotting events, the availability of other vaccines and the "fact that the COVID-19 epidemic in Denmark is currently under control." Denmark will stop administering the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, health officials said Wednesday. In a statement, the Danish Health Authority emphasized that the shot's benefits outweigh the risks for those who do get it, but said they had decided to discontinue its use because of its possible link to rare cases of blood clotting and the "fact that the COVID-19 epidemic in Denmark is currently under control and other vaccines are available." "Based on the scientific findings, our overall assessment is there is a real risk of severe side effects associated with using the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca," said Søren Brostrøm, director general of the Danish Health Authority. "We have, therefore, decided to remove the vaccine from our vaccination [program]." All AstraZeneca vaccination appointments will be cancelled, and those who have already received their first dose will get their second in the form of another vaccine, officials said. Individuals who have had forthcoming appointments cancelled will be able to reschedule "based on an assessment of the current epidemic situation." "The consequence of this decision is that anyone aged 16 or older can expect to receive an offer of vaccination in late June," officials said. "Thus, everyone who accepts the offer will be fully vaccinated about five weeks later – in early August." COVID-19 cases and deaths have decreased considerably in Denmark following a winter surge. The country reported 4,552 new cases and 14 deaths in the past week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Just under 8% of the population has been fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins. Of that group, Reuters reports that 77% got the Pfizer vaccine, 7.8% had Moderna and 15.3% received AstraZeneca. Denmark was one of several European countries to temporarily suspend use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in mid-March in order to investigate reports of rare blood clotting events in some recipients. The European Medicines Agency and World Health Organization both continued to recommend its use, and many of those countries resumed vaccinations within a few days following a preliminary EMA investigation that concluded its benefits outweighed its risks. Wednesday's announcement comes exactly one week after the EMA said rare blood clotting events should be listed as a possible side effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine, but stressed that it has been proven to prevent severe disease, hospitalization and death from COVID-19. Such clotting events are rare, officials emphasized, and appear to be more common in women under the age of 60. Several countries including France, Germany and South Korea have reintroduced the vaccine with age restrictions, while others including Australia, Greece and Britain are now recommending alternatives for young people. Also on Wednesday, the EMA announced that it is continuing to monitor the phenomenon of "very rare blood clots with low blood platelets" occurring after vaccination, and will review more data at the request of the EU's Commissioner for Health and Food Safety. The review will provide more context on the benefits of ongoing vaccination campaigns, it said, and consider whether to update recommendations for a second dose for those who have already received their first dose of AstraZeneca's vaccine. Public health experts have been largely hesitant about the idea of mixing and matching vaccines without more data, and a newly-expanded U.K. study is working to assess the potential benefits. "EMA considers the overall benefits of the vaccine continue to outweigh the risks in people being vaccinated," it said, adding that the review "will support ongoing national vaccination campaigns in their decisions on how to optimally deploy the vaccine." The EMA said last week that the use of the vaccine in member nations' vaccination campaigns would vary based on the severity of the pandemic and availability of vaccines in each country, Danish authorities noted. And in the case of Denmark, they said, the country has already made progress vaccinating the older age groups at highest risk of becoming severely ill, and has vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna at its disposal. Danish authorities said research and scientific studies in Denmark revealed a "higher than expected frequency" in the number of blood clotting events, particularly in veins in the brain, following vaccination. Brostrøm described the situation as "a known risk of severe adverse effects from vaccination with AstraZeneca, even if the risk in absolute terms is slight." Brostrøm emphasized that the AstraZeneca vaccine is still approved. He also said that the country may reintroduce it at a later point if the situation changes. "If Denmark were in a completely different situation and in the midst of a violent third outbreak, for example, and a healthcare system under pressure – and if we had not reached such an advanced point in our rollout of the vaccines – then I would not hesitate to use the vaccine, even if there were rare but severe complications associated with using it," Brostrøm said. The AstraZeneca vaccine is not currently being used in the U.S., though the company has said it will seek emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. Meanwhile, the U.S. is reviewing its own reports of rare blood clotting cases — six out of nearly 7 million doses — in the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The FDA on Tuesday recommended its use be paused "out of an abundance of caution" while it reviews data. That same day, the company announced it would "proactively delay" the rollout of its vaccine in Europe. On the subject of Johnson & Johnson, Danish health officials said they are closely monitoring the risk assessments initiated by authorities in the U.S. and Europe, and will cooperate with research into the safety and efficacy of that and all COVID-19 vaccines. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Juana Summers President Biden announced a number of executive actions intended to curb what he called an "epidemic" of gun deaths and injuries in America, and pressed Congress to also act. AILSA CHANG, HOST: It was just two weeks ago that President Biden made it seem pretty clear he was not eager to move the intractable gun debate to the top of his agenda, even in the wake of two mass shootings. But today, the president did just that by announcing a number of actions to curb a serious rise in gun violence in the U.S. over the past year. NPR political reporter Juana Summers has been following the story and joins us now. Hey, Juana.JUANA SUMMERS, BYLINE: Hello.CHANG: So tell us what the president plans to do here.SUMMERS: Yeah, so the president announced a number of initiatives, including efforts to restrict ghost guns. Those are firearms without serial numbers that are sold in kits and assembled at home. Another proposed Justice Department rule would seek to regulate devices that can be placed on pistols to effectively turn them into short-barrelled rifles. He announced new investments to community violence intervention programs, which is something that a number of advocates had been pushing the administration on. And the president also announced his intent to nominate David Chipman to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which has not had a permanent director since 2015.CHANG: Right. OK. So what is the argument that the administration seems to be making today to justify all of these actions?SUMMERS: Well, Ailsa, it's an argument about urgency. We heard President Biden talk about the two high-profile mass shootings that happened in the span of less than a week in the Atlanta area and later in Boulder, Colo. And then he talked about everything that happened in the days in between.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: You probably didn't hear, but between those two incidents less than one week apart, there were more than 850 additional shootings - 850 that took the lives of more than 250 people and left 500 - 500 - injured. This is an epidemic, for God's sake, and it has to stop.SUMMERS: What really struck me in listening to the president talk about this is that the argument he's making is so multifaceted. He talked about the economic impacts of gun violence. He also made very clear that beyond these mass shootings, the epidemic of everyday gun violence is quite deadly, and it disproportionately impacts Black people and Latinos.CHANG: I mean, the president has also been calling on Congress to act, right? But there's been this stalemate on this particular issue for so long, and with such a closely divided Senate, is the White House really making a serious push for legislation at this moment?SUMMERS: Both the president and senior administration officials are talking about the politics of this quite directly. We heard the president say repeatedly even that these actions do not infringe on the Second Amendment, which is the argument that Republicans in the National Rifle Association have been making. And he also seemed to acknowledge the years-long struggle to get Congress to do anything to change the nation's gun laws. Earlier today, I talked with Susan Rice, who's the head of the president's Domestic Policy Council.SUSAN RICE: I believe and I think President Biden believes that because the American people are fed up with daily violence in our schools and our communities and on our streets, fed up with the fact that over a hundred Americans are dying every day, 300 are being shot every day, that there is a real opportunity for rational policy and rational law to be passed on a bipartisan basis. And the president is committed to working to try to make that happen.SUMMERS: Biden and Rice both emphasized today that more needs to be done.CHANG: While leading up to today, gun control groups have criticized President Biden for not making gun legislation a top priority, as he promised he would on the campaign trail. So what are those groups saying now with these executive actions?SUMMERS: They're glad that Biden is making good on that promise, but there is also a sense for many that this is a first step. Fatimah Loren Dreier of the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention was at the White House today.FATIMAH LOREN DREIER: I know that there are incredible advocates who will continue to fight - and they should. And we should celebrate this day. And we should continue fighting. There is always work to do. As long as gun violence rages in our cities, there'll be work to do.SUMMERS: Others say Biden could do more on his own in the absence of congressional action.CHANG: That is NPR's Juana Summers. Thank you, Juana.SUMMERS: You're welcome. AILSA CHANG, HOST: It was just two weeks ago that President Biden made it seem pretty clear he was not eager to move the intractable gun debate to the top of his agenda, even in the wake of two mass shootings. But today, the president did just that by announcing a number of actions to curb a serious rise in gun violence in the U.S. over the past year. NPR political reporter Juana Summers has been following the story and joins us now. Hey, Juana. JUANA SUMMERS, BYLINE: Hello. CHANG: So tell us what the president plans to do here. SUMMERS: Yeah, so the president announced a number of initiatives, including efforts to restrict ghost guns. Those are firearms without serial numbers that are sold in kits and assembled at home. Another proposed Justice Department rule would seek to regulate devices that can be placed on pistols to effectively turn them into short-barrelled rifles. He announced new investments to community violence intervention programs, which is something that a number of advocates had been pushing the administration on. And the president also announced his intent to nominate David Chipman to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which has not had a permanent director since 2015. CHANG: Right. OK. So what is the argument that the administration seems to be making today to justify all of these actions? SUMMERS: Well, Ailsa, it's an argument about urgency. We heard President Biden talk about the two high-profile mass shootings that happened in the span of less than a week in the Atlanta area and later in Boulder, Colo. And then he talked about everything that happened in the days in between. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: You probably didn't hear, but between those two incidents less than one week apart, there were more than 850 additional shootings - 850 that took the lives of more than 250 people and left 500 - 500 - injured. This is an epidemic, for God's sake, and it has to stop. SUMMERS: What really struck me in listening to the president talk about this is that the argument he's making is so multifaceted. He talked about the economic impacts of gun violence. He also made very clear that beyond these mass shootings, the epidemic of everyday gun violence is quite deadly, and it disproportionately impacts Black people and Latinos. CHANG: I mean, the president has also been calling on Congress to act, right? But there's been this stalemate on this particular issue for so long, and with such a closely divided Senate, is the White House really making a serious push for legislation at this moment? SUMMERS: Both the president and senior administration officials are talking about the politics of this quite directly. We heard the president say repeatedly even that these actions do not infringe on the Second Amendment, which is the argument that Republicans in the National Rifle Association have been making. And he also seemed to acknowledge the years-long struggle to get Congress to do anything to change the nation's gun laws. Earlier today, I talked with Susan Rice, who's the head of the president's Domestic Policy Council. SUSAN RICE: I believe and I think President Biden believes that because the American people are fed up with daily violence in our schools and our communities and on our streets, fed up with the fact that over a hundred Americans are dying every day, 300 are being shot every day, that there is a real opportunity for rational policy and rational law to be passed on a bipartisan basis. And the president is committed to working to try to make that happen. SUMMERS: Biden and Rice both emphasized today that more needs to be done. CHANG: While leading up to today, gun control groups have criticized President Biden for not making gun legislation a top priority, as he promised he would on the campaign trail. So what are those groups saying now with these executive actions? SUMMERS: They're glad that Biden is making good on that promise, but there is also a sense for many that this is a first step. Fatimah Loren Dreier of the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention was at the White House today. FATIMAH LOREN DREIER: I know that there are incredible advocates who will continue to fight - and they should. And we should celebrate this day. And we should continue fighting. There is always work to do. As long as gun violence rages in our cities, there'll be work to do. SUMMERS: Others say Biden could do more on his own in the absence of congressional action. CHANG: That is NPR's Juana Summers. Thank you, Juana. SUMMERS: You're welcome. Copyright © 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

chang

weeks

susan rice

epidemic

By  Ashish Valentine Phill Wilson is the founder of Black AIDS Institute. He's retired but still connecting the dots on illness. Now he's focused on the coronavirus pandemic and how to fight COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Unless we learn from HIV/AIDS, COVID-19 will be with communities of color for some time. That's according to Phill Wilson, founder of the Black AIDS Institute. NPR's Reflect America fellow Ashish Valentine reports.ASHISH VALENTINE, BYLINE: In 1981, Phill Wilson and his partner, Chris Brownlie, were living in Chicago. Brownlie went to the doctor and was told he had swollen lymph nodes.PHILL WILSON: And his doctor mentioned something about this strange disease that gay men in New York and Los Angeles were getting. And I mentioned that I, too, had swollen lymph nodes, that I had had them for a while.VALENTINE: Soon, a softball teammate died from the mysterious disease. It would come to be known as AIDS. Wilson and Brownlie moved to Los Angeles and soon were involved with the AIDS hotline. The American public thought of HIV/AIDS as primarily affecting white gay men. That was never accurate.WILSON: From the earliest days, Black people represented 25% of the new cases in the U.S. Black women represented over 50% of women diagnosed with HIV and AIDS. And it feels like deja vu. You would have thought we would have learned the lessons around race and racial disparities in the AIDS pandemic, and we wouldn't repeat those mistakes in COVID-19.VALENTINE: Wilson founded the Black AIDS Institute in 1999 as the nation's first think tank dedicated to mobilizing Black community leaders, media organizations and other institutions to be messengers for science. Dr. Robert Fullilove is a professor of public health at Columbia University working on HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Wilson, he says, was a critical early voice, arguing that infectious diseases needed social solutions, not just biomedical ones. Wilson did this as a Black, gay and HIV-positive man.WILSON: Bill found a way to break through all of that, and I think that was part of his genius.VALENTINE: Wilson says the same factors are driving disproportionate rates of COVID-19 infection and death in Black communities and hesitancy around COVID vaccines. Raniyah Copeland took over running the Institute when Wilson retired three years ago. In addition to addressing HIV/AIDS, the center's now partnering with the National Institute of Health to educate Black communities about coronavirus vaccines.RANIYAH COPELAND: For us, it's about giving people information so they can make decisions for themself. You know, you don't trust the vaccine. Got it. Let's figure out what information you need to make an informed decision.VALENTINE: The HIV community's argument for eradicating both diseases is that the solutions have to be structural.WILSON: We need to be building and strengthening institutions and these communities that come from these communities.COPELAND: And people in HIV have been saying for a very long time universal health care is prevention. And I think that is so true for COVID now, right? If there was universal health care, community members, patients, clients could call their primary care provider and say, OK, is it time for my vaccine? They'd have trusted relationships with them.WILSON: There's something to be said for decarceration. Prisons and parts of the underdeveloped world represent potential reservoirs where the virus will be able to stay, where it will able to mutate. And as a consequence, we will never be able to eradicate it.VALENTINE: Wilson turns 65 in a few months. He remembers learning about his status in his late 20s and his doctor telling him to put his affairs in order.WILSON: The dying would take care of itself. That wasn't my job. My job was to focus on the living, and it's been a gift of a journey that I'm very, very happy about.VALENTINE: Wilson isn't planning on cashing in his chips anytime soon. There's still work to do.Ashish Valentine, NPR News.(SOUNDBITE OF THE MICROPHONES' "INSTRUMENTAL - 2") MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Unless we learn from HIV/AIDS, COVID-19 will be with communities of color for some time. That's according to Phill Wilson, founder of the Black AIDS Institute. NPR's Reflect America fellow Ashish Valentine reports. ASHISH VALENTINE, BYLINE: In 1981, Phill Wilson and his partner, Chris Brownlie, were living in Chicago. Brownlie went to the doctor and was told he had swollen lymph nodes. PHILL WILSON: And his doctor mentioned something about this strange disease that gay men in New York and Los Angeles were getting. And I mentioned that I, too, had swollen lymph nodes, that I had had them for a while. VALENTINE: Soon, a softball teammate died from the mysterious disease. It would come to be known as AIDS. Wilson and Brownlie moved to Los Angeles and soon were involved with the AIDS hotline. The American public thought of HIV/AIDS as primarily affecting white gay men. That was never accurate. WILSON: From the earliest days, Black people represented 25% of the new cases in the U.S. Black women represented over 50% of women diagnosed with HIV and AIDS. And it feels like deja vu. You would have thought we would have learned the lessons around race and racial disparities in the AIDS pandemic, and we wouldn't repeat those mistakes in COVID-19. VALENTINE: Wilson founded the Black AIDS Institute in 1999 as the nation's first think tank dedicated to mobilizing Black community leaders, media organizations and other institutions to be messengers for science. Dr. Robert Fullilove is a professor of public health at Columbia University working on HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Wilson, he says, was a critical early voice, arguing that infectious diseases needed social solutions, not just biomedical ones. Wilson did this as a Black, gay and HIV-positive man. WILSON: Bill found a way to break through all of that, and I think that was part of his genius. VALENTINE: Wilson says the same factors are driving disproportionate rates of COVID-19 infection and death in Black communities and hesitancy around COVID vaccines. Raniyah Copeland took over running the Institute when Wilson retired three years ago. In addition to addressing HIV/AIDS, the center's now partnering with the National Institute of Health to educate Black communities about coronavirus vaccines. RANIYAH COPELAND: For us, it's about giving people information so they can make decisions for themself. You know, you don't trust the vaccine. Got it. Let's figure out what information you need to make an informed decision. VALENTINE: The HIV community's argument for eradicating both diseases is that the solutions have to be structural. WILSON: We need to be building and strengthening institutions and these communities that come from these communities. COPELAND: And people in HIV have been saying for a very long time universal health care is prevention. And I think that is so true for COVID now, right? If there was universal health care, community members, patients, clients could call their primary care provider and say, OK, is it time for my vaccine? They'd have trusted relationships with them. WILSON: There's something to be said for decarceration. Prisons and parts of the underdeveloped world represent potential reservoirs where the virus will be able to stay, where it will able to mutate. And as a consequence, we will never be able to eradicate it. VALENTINE: Wilson turns 65 in a few months. He remembers learning about his status in his late 20s and his doctor telling him to put his affairs in order. WILSON: The dying would take care of itself. That wasn't my job. My job was to focus on the living, and it's been a gift of a journey that I'm very, very happy about. VALENTINE: Wilson isn't planning on cashing in his chips anytime soon. There's still work to do. Ashish Valentine, NPR News. (SOUNDBITE OF THE MICROPHONES' "INSTRUMENTAL - 2") Copyright © 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Jo Corona The violent call for Puerto Rican independence earned Rafael Cancel Miranda 25 years in prison. He is remembered by his wife, María de los Ángeles Vázquez, and their son, Rafael Cancel Vázquez. A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: Time now for StoryCorps. Coverage of the January 6 attack on the Capitol left Rafael Cancel Vazquez in disbelief.RAFAEL CANCEL VAZQUEZ: Watching the news, they kept on talking about how this was the first armed attack in the U.S. Congress. And I was like, what? You don't know about 1954?MARTÍNEZ: Seventy years ago today, his father, Rafael Cancel Miranda, and three other Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire in the House of Representatives and injured several congressmen. The demonstration for Puerto Rican independence earned Cancel Miranda 25 years in prison. At StoryCorps, he was remembered by his son and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Vazquez. And a warning - some of their recollections include graphic descriptions of violence.MARIA DE LOS ANGELES VAZQUEZ: It was presented to the public that the people that took part in that act were crazy. Rafael was sent to Alcatraz, and they were forgotten.CANCEL VAZQUEZ: How did you meet Papa, and how did you fall in love?DE LOS ANGELES VAZQUEZ: Well, it wasn't until the '70s that people started talking about these four Puerto Ricans that were imprisoned in the States. They had been in jail already for about 20 years, and there was this big campaign to send a Christmas card to nationalists. So I sent him a picture of an orchid, and he wrote back, to my surprise, telling me how thankful he was because he had forgotten that flower pots existed. You know, I thought, gosh, this man has been in jail for so many years, and he is still moved by a flower pot.CANCEL VAZQUEZ: When I was growing up, there was always orchids at our house. But I just thought that you loved orchids. I didn't know that it was very special for him too.DE LOS ANGELES VAZQUEZ: Si.CANCEL VAZQUEZ: You know, when I was a little kid, I had no clue about what Dad did. I just knew that whenever we went somewhere, everybody wanted an autograph, a picture, or, like, oh, Don Rafa, it's an honor to meet you. And I was like, wow, my dad is so cool. He's cooler than yours.DE LOS ANGELES VAZQUEZ: After you learned about March 1, '54, did that change your relationship with your father?CANCEL VAZQUEZ: Of course. Some of the things when I was a little kid then made more sense. He would always be in state of alert. For example, when he would take me to eat, I would always notice that he would sit in a way that he could look at the exit, and he would say (speaking Spanish), like, always look everywhere. But he was always so loving and gentle and kind. I remember asking him, like, Dad, how on earth did you grab a gun and started shooting people? And he told me about when he was a little kid. His mom and dad went out to a march, and one of the police chiefs was like, shoot to kill. So his mom and dad went to a protest dressed in white, and they came back dressed in red because they had to drag themselves over dead bodies. That was his first memory.DE LOS ANGELES VAZQUEZ: How do you think your father would like to be remembered?CANCEL VAZQUEZ: For me, Papa - he was my best friend. But I think he would like to be remembered (speaking Spanish) - as a true Puerto Rican from head to toe and able to look at himself in the mirror every day and feel respect. I think that's how he would love to be remembered.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)MARTÍNEZ: Rafael Cancel Vazquez with his mother, Maria de los Angeles Vazquez, remembering Rafael Cancel Miranda. He died in 2020. A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: Time now for StoryCorps. Coverage of the January 6 attack on the Capitol left Rafael Cancel Vazquez in disbelief. RAFAEL CANCEL VAZQUEZ: Watching the news, they kept on talking about how this was the first armed attack in the U.S. Congress. And I was like, what? You don't know about 1954? MARTÍNEZ: Seventy years ago today, his father, Rafael Cancel Miranda, and three other Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire in the House of Representatives and injured several congressmen. The demonstration for Puerto Rican independence earned Cancel Miranda 25 years in prison. At StoryCorps, he was remembered by his son and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Vazquez. And a warning - some of their recollections include graphic descriptions of violence. MARIA DE LOS ANGELES VAZQUEZ: It was presented to the public that the people that took part in that act were crazy. Rafael was sent to Alcatraz, and they were forgotten. CANCEL VAZQUEZ: How did you meet Papa, and how did you fall in love? DE LOS ANGELES VAZQUEZ: Well, it wasn't until the '70s that people started talking about these four Puerto Ricans that were imprisoned in the States. They had been in jail already for about 20 years, and there was this big campaign to send a Christmas card to nationalists. So I sent him a picture of an orchid, and he wrote back, to my surprise, telling me how thankful he was because he had forgotten that flower pots existed. You know, I thought, gosh, this man has been in jail for so many years, and he is still moved by a flower pot. CANCEL VAZQUEZ: When I was growing up, there was always orchids at our house. But I just thought that you loved orchids. I didn't know that it was very special for him too. DE LOS ANGELES VAZQUEZ: Si. CANCEL VAZQUEZ: You know, when I was a little kid, I had no clue about what Dad did. I just knew that whenever we went somewhere, everybody wanted an autograph, a picture, or, like, oh, Don Rafa, it's an honor to meet you. And I was like, wow, my dad is so cool. He's cooler than yours. DE LOS ANGELES VAZQUEZ: After you learned about March 1, '54, did that change your relationship with your father? CANCEL VAZQUEZ: Of course. Some of the things when I was a little kid then made more sense. He would always be in state of alert. For example, when he would take me to eat, I would always notice that he would sit in a way that he could look at the exit, and he would say (speaking Spanish), like, always look everywhere. But he was always so loving and gentle and kind. I remember asking him, like, Dad, how on earth did you grab a gun and started shooting people? And he told me about when he was a little kid. His mom and dad went out to a march, and one of the police chiefs was like, shoot to kill. So his mom and dad went to a protest dressed in white, and they came back dressed in red because they had to drag themselves over dead bodies. That was his first memory. DE LOS ANGELES VAZQUEZ: How do you think your father would like to be remembered? CANCEL VAZQUEZ: For me, Papa - he was my best friend. But I think he would like to be remembered (speaking Spanish) - as a true Puerto Rican from head to toe and able to look at himself in the mirror every day and feel respect. I think that's how he would love to be remembered. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) MARTÍNEZ: Rafael Cancel Vazquez with his mother, Maria de los Angeles Vazquez, remembering Rafael Cancel Miranda. He died in 2020. Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Nina Totenberg The Supreme Court, seen behind the stop light, is hearing arguments in a case testing the legality of a federal regulation banning devices that modify semiautomatic weapons to speed the firing mechanism. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images hide caption The Supreme Court, seen behind the stop light, is hearing arguments in a case testing the legality of a federal regulation banning devices that modify semiautomatic weapons to speed the firing mechanism. Yet another gun case at the Supreme Court Wednesday. This time the Second Amendment right to bear arms is nowhere in sight. Rather, the question is the legality of a federal regulation banning devices that modify semiautomatic weapons to speed the firing mechanism. The regulation wasn't created by the Biden administration. It was created by President Trump in 2018 after a single gunman in Las Vegas, using multiple guns modified by so-called bump stock devices, killed 60 people and wounded 400 more — all in the space of 11 minutes. "I'll never forget the sound of the machine gun firing into the crowd that night," says Marisa Marano, who was there. Actually, it wasn't a machine gun. The shooter was armed with 14 semiautomatic weapons, modified with bump stocks to generate rapid fire. And the carnage was so horrific that Trump almost immediately ordered the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to ban the sale and possession of these devices that the ATF now says convert otherwise legal semiautomatic guns into illegal machine guns. Machine guns were developed at the end of the 1800s for use as military weapons in battle. But in the late 1920s and early 1930s gangsters began using them for their criminal activities, often terrorizing the streets. Congress responded by enacting the National Firearms Act in 1934 banning machine guns. Those challenging the Trump rule on bump stocks point out that the ATF hasn't always equated bump stocks with machine guns. They argue that the agency has wrongly reinterpreted the statute banning machine guns to include bump stocks, and they maintain that the agency doesn't have the authority to do that under existing law. At the heart of the dispute is a highly technical question about how bump stocks work in practice. In its brief for the ATF, the government notes that under the National Firearms Act Congress banned machine guns because they eliminate the manual movements that a shooter would otherwise have to make in order to fire continuously. And while a machine gun can fire hundreds of rounds per minute with just one pull of the trigger, semiautomatic weapons can't do that — at least not without modifications, like the bump stock. Mark Chenoweth, president of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, the conservative group that is challenging the bump stock regulation, contends that bump stocks do not change the character of a weapon. "Whether or not there is a bump stock attached to that semiautomatic weapon, a bump stock does not change the way that trigger operates," he says. "The trigger has to be pulled for each time the trigger moves ... the trigger resets between each shot." Not so, says the government. A standard semiautomatic rifle fires only one shot each time the shooter pulls the trigger but a bump stock converts the gun into a weapon that would allow a shooter "with a single pull of the trigger, to fire at rates of up to 800 bullets per minute." According to the government, the bump stocks at issue in this case, for instance, maintain a continuous firing cycle as long as the shooter "keeps his trigger finger stationary on the finger rest." Each side focuses on its strengths. The government stresses the lethality of semiautomatic weapons when they are modified by bump stocks. And it notes that when Congress amended the National Firearms Act in 1968 and 1986, it added that machine gun parts themselves count as machine guns. The challengers focus on earlier ATF regulations that did not ban bump stocks under the same law, and they see the bump stock ban as another example of an administrative agency enacting a new regulation that criminalizes conduct without explicit congressional authorization. It's an argument that plays to the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority and its increasing inclination to roll back agency powers. A decision in the case is expected by summer. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Two minors are charged in connection with the shooting death at the Chiefs' Super Bowl rally. NPR's Leila Fadel talks to Jeffrey Butts, a researcher at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. LEILA FADEL, HOST: Two minors face charges in connection with a shooting last week that killed one person and injured 22 others, including children, at what was supposed to be a celebration - the Super Bowl victory rally for the Kansas City Chiefs. A court statement said they're being held in juvenile detention on gun-related and resisting arrest charges. The shooting yet again raises questions about how some of the youngest people in the U.S. are getting their hands on guns. To talk about this, we're joined by Jeffrey Butts. He's a researcher at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Good morning, and thanks for being on the program.JEFFREY BUTTS: Hi. Good morning.FADEL: So how do people under 18 years old get their hands on guns?BUTTS: Well, it should be no mystery to any of us. There are guns all over America. I think you've probably heard there are more guns than people in the United States. About 40% of people report in surveys that they live in a home where people own guns. So why are we shocked that teenagers can get their hands on them?FADEL: Yeah. I mean, this isn't the first time we've seen young people accused in high-profile shootings. We don't know the exact age of these shooters, but the most extreme example I can think of was from a little more than a year ago, when a 6-year-old was accused of shooting his first-grade teacher. Is gun violence for minors a growing problem, or is this a problem that's been around?BUTTS: Well, it's a problem that's been around. And I think it's a mistake, actually - it's more horrifying when we hear about a young person...FADEL: Yeah.BUTTS: ...Using a gun, but they are just reflecting back to us American culture and American politics. I don't think we should be surprised.FADEL: So in your view, what is the solution here? How do you prevent people, and young people in particular, from committing violence with guns?BUTTS: Well, all you have to do is visit some other countries or look them up, and you find the solutions. We just live in a country where our political leaders refuse to do anything about this. I lay all these deaths at the feet of people in elected office who believe it's more important to satisfy the gun lobby and raise money off this issue than it is to save lives.FADEL: What are some of the solutions?BUTTS: You can register handguns. You can make them technically impossible to fire unless you were the registered owner. That's - that technology has been around for quite some time, and we refused to do it. And I think at some point we need to embark on a system of - I don't know how to say this, but basically, we have to reduce the amount of guns in circulation. We cannot just wait for them to age out, so once they get so old and can't fire anymore. That cannot be the only way we reduce the population of guns currently in circulation.FADEL: So in your view, it's not about the way you charge people after violence is committed, but about the access in the beginning in the first place.BUTTS: Yes. We have experimented in this country for several decades with extreme forms of punishment, incarceration, and the violent crime numbers vacillate. They go up and down. When you look at it in terms of research and trying to establish the causal relationship between gun possession, punishment for guns and violence, you don't find a really strong correlation. I think what we're looking at is the culture and politics of America. Not - this is not a failure of the criminal justice system. If criminal justice solved all these problems, we would know it by now because we lead the world in incarcerating people.FADEL: So it wouldn't be a deterrent to charge minors as an adult, for example.BUTTS: Sure it's a deterrent, but the word deterrent means that it may have an effect on some people. That's not a solution to the problem. Again, we experimented with that as well. We started putting young people in the adult criminal justice system a lot during the 1980s and '90s. And the states that led the way on that did not see steeper increases in crime. We did not find a strong correlation between treating juveniles as adults and public safety.FADEL: Jeffrey Butts is director of the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Thank you for your time.BUTTS: You're welcome.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) LEILA FADEL, HOST: Two minors face charges in connection with a shooting last week that killed one person and injured 22 others, including children, at what was supposed to be a celebration - the Super Bowl victory rally for the Kansas City Chiefs. A court statement said they're being held in juvenile detention on gun-related and resisting arrest charges. The shooting yet again raises questions about how some of the youngest people in the U.S. are getting their hands on guns. To talk about this, we're joined by Jeffrey Butts. He's a researcher at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Good morning, and thanks for being on the program. JEFFREY BUTTS: Hi. Good morning. FADEL: So how do people under 18 years old get their hands on guns? BUTTS: Well, it should be no mystery to any of us. There are guns all over America. I think you've probably heard there are more guns than people in the United States. About 40% of people report in surveys that they live in a home where people own guns. So why are we shocked that teenagers can get their hands on them? FADEL: Yeah. I mean, this isn't the first time we've seen young people accused in high-profile shootings. We don't know the exact age of these shooters, but the most extreme example I can think of was from a little more than a year ago, when a 6-year-old was accused of shooting his first-grade teacher. Is gun violence for minors a growing problem, or is this a problem that's been around? BUTTS: Well, it's a problem that's been around. And I think it's a mistake, actually - it's more horrifying when we hear about a young person... FADEL: Yeah. BUTTS: ...Using a gun, but they are just reflecting back to us American culture and American politics. I don't think we should be surprised. FADEL: So in your view, what is the solution here? How do you prevent people, and young people in particular, from committing violence with guns? BUTTS: Well, all you have to do is visit some other countries or look them up, and you find the solutions. We just live in a country where our political leaders refuse to do anything about this. I lay all these deaths at the feet of people in elected office who believe it's more important to satisfy the gun lobby and raise money off this issue than it is to save lives. FADEL: What are some of the solutions? BUTTS: You can register handguns. You can make them technically impossible to fire unless you were the registered owner. That's - that technology has been around for quite some time, and we refused to do it. And I think at some point we need to embark on a system of - I don't know how to say this, but basically, we have to reduce the amount of guns in circulation. We cannot just wait for them to age out, so once they get so old and can't fire anymore. That cannot be the only way we reduce the population of guns currently in circulation. FADEL: So in your view, it's not about the way you charge people after violence is committed, but about the access in the beginning in the first place. BUTTS: Yes. We have experimented in this country for several decades with extreme forms of punishment, incarceration, and the violent crime numbers vacillate. They go up and down. When you look at it in terms of research and trying to establish the causal relationship between gun possession, punishment for guns and violence, you don't find a really strong correlation. I think what we're looking at is the culture and politics of America. Not - this is not a failure of the criminal justice system. If criminal justice solved all these problems, we would know it by now because we lead the world in incarcerating people. FADEL: So it wouldn't be a deterrent to charge minors as an adult, for example. BUTTS: Sure it's a deterrent, but the word deterrent means that it may have an effect on some people. That's not a solution to the problem. Again, we experimented with that as well. We started putting young people in the adult criminal justice system a lot during the 1980s and '90s. And the states that led the way on that did not see steeper increases in crime. We did not find a strong correlation between treating juveniles as adults and public safety. FADEL: Jeffrey Butts is director of the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Thank you for your time. BUTTS: You're welcome. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Scott Simon NPR's Scott Simon and USA Today columnist Christine Brennan talk about women's college basketball, the NBA all-star weekend, and the Kansas City Super Bowl parade shooting. SCOTT SIMON, HOST: And now it's time for sports.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)SIMON: Caitlin Clark, record breaker, history maker. Sabrina versus Steph for the three-point crown. And tragedy at a Super Bowl celebration. Christine Brennan of USA Today joins us. Christine, thanks so much for being with us.CHRISTINE BRENNAN: My pleasure, Scott. Thank you.SIMON: Caitlin Clark, wow. Iowa Hawkeyes - she broke the NCAA women's basketball scoring record this week, 49 points against Michigan. Biggest name in sports right now?BRENNAN: I think so. Greatest show in sports, certainly. The joy with which she plays, Scott, the confidence, the certainty of those logo threes. And when we say logo threes, that means she's shooting from where the logo is at center court. So it's well, well beyond the three-point line. And what she did as I was watching and probably you and many other thousands - probably well over a million - watching her break that record of Kelsey Plum, she - bang, bang, bang - three shots. It was two minutes and 12 or 13 seconds, eight points, including two threes. And that magnificent three, as I said, from the logo, at Iowa, where she is beloved, her home state, her college - everything about her.But it's not just in Iowa, Scott, as you know. She is the personification of a new, latter-day Harlem Globetrotters - barnstorming the country, selling out arenas. I was one of those people with family who bought tickets at University of Maryland a couple of weeks ago. No press pass for me. I wanted to see it in...SIMON: Aw.BRENNAN: ...Person as a fan sees it. She is just a singular athlete with those threes, where we can watch every move she makes. And, obviously, just the greatest female athlete in terms of basketball point total and scoring. And she's about to break the overall record - just 99 points to Pete Maravich - means she would be the greatest male or female in Division I. And there's Lynette Woodard who played before the NCAA. Caitlin Clark will pass her with 81 more points, so a couple more records yet to go for her.SIMON: Yeah. A few days until March Madness. Do you think this year there's going to be more interest in the women's tournament than the men's?BRENNAN: I do. I really do. Obviously, Caitlin Clark. But it's not just Caitlin Clark. And, of course, there's no guarantee Iowa's going to make the Final Four again. They were in the championship game last year against LSU. That was riveting and just fast - in controversy and everything. It had it all. But even without Caitlin Clark and Iowa, you've got South Carolina, Dawn Staley, the great coach. This is a No. 1 ranked team. You've got, of course, the stories of UConn. You've got teams in the West now - USC with JuJu Watkins, a great young star. These are names we know.What happens in men's basketball now, unfortunately or fortunately, as the case may be - depending on if you're old school or new school - is that a lot of them are one and done. And that means they play for a year, and then they go on to play professionally in, you know, NBA draft, whatever. That's great. But what it does - it lessens the connection between the fans and the alums and those players at that school. And so we just don't know the names as much. So I do think this is the year where everyone should be doing a women's bracket as well as a men's, and that the men's may take, you know, a back seat to the women's tournament. These are sentences, by the way, Scott, I never would have thought I...SIMON: Ah.BRENNAN: ...Would have uttered. That's how significant this is.SIMON: And let's just note quickly, Sabrina Ionescu of the New York Liberty stands a legitimate chance to defeat Steph Curry of Golden State tonight in the three-point shootout, don't they...BRENNAN: Right.SIMON: ...Doesn't she?BRENNAN: She does. And great respect there. You know Billie Jean and Bobby Riggs, years ago, a lot of animosity. Not here. These two have great respect. And Steph Curry, who has taken his daughters to watch Sabrina play, he thinks she might beat her - beat him. And that's possible. The three-point line will be the NBA three-point line, which is about three feet longer than the women's. And Sabrina feels very comfortable shooting from there. And this is going to be great fun to watch. The battle of the sexes, so to speak.SIMON: Of course, terrible tragedy at the Super Bowl victory parade in Kansas City. There are two juveniles in custody now. One person was killed, 22 - most of them children - injured. Is this America now?BRENNAN: I'm afraid it is. I mean, think about it, Scott, as - you know, as we all have over the last few days. Super Bowl parade and, of course, mass shooting. And you just can't believe it. But this is where we are, and it is believable. What we have seen is the Kansas City Chiefs rise up. Patrick Mahomes and his wife were at the hospital seeing some of the kids. Travis Kelce has donated money. Taylor Swift has donated money to the poor woman - the fund to - for her funeral and expenses - the woman who was killed. And we're going to see a lot more of that as this community bonds together.SIMON: Christine Brennan, always a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks so much.BRENNAN: Thank you, Scott.(SOUNDBITE OF SHANGHAI RESTORTATION PROJECT'S "MISS SHANGHAI REVEALED") SCOTT SIMON, HOST: And now it's time for sports. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) SIMON: Caitlin Clark, record breaker, history maker. Sabrina versus Steph for the three-point crown. And tragedy at a Super Bowl celebration. Christine Brennan of USA Today joins us. Christine, thanks so much for being with us. CHRISTINE BRENNAN: My pleasure, Scott. Thank you. SIMON: Caitlin Clark, wow. Iowa Hawkeyes - she broke the NCAA women's basketball scoring record this week, 49 points against Michigan. Biggest name in sports right now? BRENNAN: I think so. Greatest show in sports, certainly. The joy with which she plays, Scott, the confidence, the certainty of those logo threes. And when we say logo threes, that means she's shooting from where the logo is at center court. So it's well, well beyond the three-point line. And what she did as I was watching and probably you and many other thousands - probably well over a million - watching her break that record of Kelsey Plum, she - bang, bang, bang - three shots. It was two minutes and 12 or 13 seconds, eight points, including two threes. And that magnificent three, as I said, from the logo, at Iowa, where she is beloved, her home state, her college - everything about her. But it's not just in Iowa, Scott, as you know. She is the personification of a new, latter-day Harlem Globetrotters - barnstorming the country, selling out arenas. I was one of those people with family who bought tickets at University of Maryland a couple of weeks ago. No press pass for me. I wanted to see it in... SIMON: Aw. BRENNAN: ...Person as a fan sees it. She is just a singular athlete with those threes, where we can watch every move she makes. And, obviously, just the greatest female athlete in terms of basketball point total and scoring. And she's about to break the overall record - just 99 points to Pete Maravich - means she would be the greatest male or female in Division I. And there's Lynette Woodard who played before the NCAA. Caitlin Clark will pass her with 81 more points, so a couple more records yet to go for her. SIMON: Yeah. A few days until March Madness. Do you think this year there's going to be more interest in the women's tournament than the men's? BRENNAN: I do. I really do. Obviously, Caitlin Clark. But it's not just Caitlin Clark. And, of course, there's no guarantee Iowa's going to make the Final Four again. They were in the championship game last year against LSU. That was riveting and just fast - in controversy and everything. It had it all. But even without Caitlin Clark and Iowa, you've got South Carolina, Dawn Staley, the great coach. This is a No. 1 ranked team. You've got, of course, the stories of UConn. You've got teams in the West now - USC with JuJu Watkins, a great young star. These are names we know. What happens in men's basketball now, unfortunately or fortunately, as the case may be - depending on if you're old school or new school - is that a lot of them are one and done. And that means they play for a year, and then they go on to play professionally in, you know, NBA draft, whatever. That's great. But what it does - it lessens the connection between the fans and the alums and those players at that school. And so we just don't know the names as much. So I do think this is the year where everyone should be doing a women's bracket as well as a men's, and that the men's may take, you know, a back seat to the women's tournament. These are sentences, by the way, Scott, I never would have thought I... SIMON: Ah. BRENNAN: ...Would have uttered. That's how significant this is. SIMON: And let's just note quickly, Sabrina Ionescu of the New York Liberty stands a legitimate chance to defeat Steph Curry of Golden State tonight in the three-point shootout, don't they... BRENNAN: Right. SIMON: ...Doesn't she? BRENNAN: She does. And great respect there. You know Billie Jean and Bobby Riggs, years ago, a lot of animosity. Not here. These two have great respect. And Steph Curry, who has taken his daughters to watch Sabrina play, he thinks she might beat her - beat him. And that's possible. The three-point line will be the NBA three-point line, which is about three feet longer than the women's. And Sabrina feels very comfortable shooting from there. And this is going to be great fun to watch. The battle of the sexes, so to speak. SIMON: Of course, terrible tragedy at the Super Bowl victory parade in Kansas City. There are two juveniles in custody now. One person was killed, 22 - most of them children - injured. Is this America now? BRENNAN: I'm afraid it is. I mean, think about it, Scott, as - you know, as we all have over the last few days. Super Bowl parade and, of course, mass shooting. And you just can't believe it. But this is where we are, and it is believable. What we have seen is the Kansas City Chiefs rise up. Patrick Mahomes and his wife were at the hospital seeing some of the kids. Travis Kelce has donated money. Taylor Swift has donated money to the poor woman - the fund to - for her funeral and expenses - the woman who was killed. And we're going to see a lot more of that as this community bonds together. SIMON: Christine Brennan, always a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks so much. BRENNAN: Thank you, Scott. (SOUNDBITE OF SHANGHAI RESTORTATION PROJECT'S "MISS SHANGHAI REVEALED") Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Diba Mohtasham People flee after shots were fired near the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory parade on Wednesday in Kansas City, Mo. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images hide caption People flee after shots were fired near the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory parade on Wednesday in Kansas City, Mo. In yet another episode of mass shootings in America, one person was killed and more than 20 were injured during what was supposed to be a joyous Super Bowl parade on Wednesday in Kansas City, Mo. About half of those with shooting-related injuries were children — ranging from 6 to 15 years old. Year after year, shooting incidents prove that gun violence in the U.S. happens in a variety of different gatherings. But so long as such attacks continue, parents now have the burden of deciding how to respond. "Parents who are just regular people living each day have to decide what we wish to do about it. Parades, rallies, schools, movies — it seems like almost nothing is safe," Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said in a news conference after Wednesday's shooting, adding that he almost brought his young son to the event. My sister was afraid to bring her fam to the parade today. Her husband thought she was being paranoid but, luckily, she didn't listen to him. Man I'm so tired of this happening everywhere. This was a celebration! Now there's 9 children in the hospital with gunshot wounds. https://t.co/60CKcDf6J1 Elaine Corbin, a Kansas City mother of two daughters ages 6 and 9, had already attended both the parade and the rally and were inside their hotel when shots rang out. "It's a really unfortunate situation because we're all born and raised here. So we love our Kansas City sports teams, especially the Chiefs. And so being able to celebrate with millions of fans is something that's really important to us," she said in an interview with NPR. She said the incident — which occurred despite the presence of over 800 law enforcement officers — makes her now more hesitant to attend large, crowded and unregulated events in particular. I took my kids to the Royals parade in 15 to give them the experience to remember. The thought of being shot at never crossed my mind. Getting out of there and keeping ahold of my kids worried me to chose not going to any others. After today I never will. #GunControlNow Similarly, in one Reddit thread (Note: The post contains profanity) two years ago, a person wrote that their family will no longer attend parades as a result of the 2022 Highland Park, Ill., parade shooting. Commenters agreed, saying that only events that do bag checks now feel safe. Just listened to a woman on KSHB saying that the Super Bowl parade was the second big event she’d attended where a shooting had happened.“I’m never bringing my kids to another place like this again. It’s just not safe anymore wherever you go.” Too many people & guns she said. "It is exceptionally difficult to stop an active shooter situation at what is essentially a perimeter-less environment," Steve Adelman, vice president of the Event Safety Alliance, told NPR. Even so, Adelman says parents should be able to bring their children to an event like this. "Children should be able to express their passionate support for their team by going to a victory parade," he said. Other parents agree, and say they still plan to attend similar events unless their children themselves feel unsafe. "I think parents and especially children now already — because of America's gun violence crisis — show up at things looking for exits and thinking ahead in that way." Kansas state Rep. Jo Ella Hoye, who attended the parade and rally with her 11-year-old son, told NPR. "I do think that it will give a lot of us pause, at least for a while, about being in larger crowds." "But at the same time ... I'm going to keep fighting to make it safe for us to be out and about with our kids because we're not going to just, you know, hole up inside of our houses for the rest of our lives," Hoye said, who has advocated for gun reform as a volunteer. Chastity Logsdon traveled from out of state to attend the Chiefs parade with her 3- and 5-year-old children. "You never think you're going to enjoy something celebratory and a mass shooting is going to break out. It wasn't my thought," Logson told NPR. "[These events were] always something family-oriented for us to do. ... And why can't it be?" It’s heartbreaking that my daughter woke up three days in a row so excited about the parade, and instead she now has the memory of kids her exact age being shot at the parade she was so excited about. Being a parent right now is so hard. These kids deserve better man. Adelman of the Event Safety Alliance said such a conversation distracts from the root of the issue, which is a lack of gun control. "If you want to reduce the odds of getting shot, you have to reduce the number of guns. It is that simple," he said. "The common denominator is not the type of event or whether children are present or absent. It's guns." The mayor of Highland Park, Ill., where seven people were killed and dozens were injured in the July 4, 2022, parade shooting, echoed Adelman's sentiments in an email to NPR. "Part of the beauty of community is coming together to celebrate, yet in America, classic reasons to celebrate — the Fourth of July or the Super Bowl — are now marred by the uniquely American threat of gun violence," Mayor Nancy Rotering wrote. "I would hate to see people leaving kids out of big community events for fear of a mass shooting. We do not need to live this way and we shouldn't be forced to do so by Congress' lack of impactful action." I haven’t been to a parade in years and took my kid out of a charter school when they started doing active shooter drills. I am leaving this country bc I don’t feel safe. https://t.co/03swFZaIwO A third of U.S. adults say fear of mass shootings stops them from going to certain places and events, according to a 2019 survey on stress and mass shootings commissioned by the American Psychological Association. More than half of adults surveyed said they fear the possibility of a mass shooting occurring at a public event. The next most feared place was the mall (50%), school or university (42%), then a movie theater (38%). "It's clear that mass shootings are taking a toll on our mental health, and we should be particularly concerned that they are affecting the way many of us are living our daily lives," said Arthur Evans Jr., the APA's CEO, in the study. An earlier version of this story said Elaine Corbin was about to attend the parade with her children when the shots rang out. In fact, they had attended the parade and were in their hotel when they heard shots. An earlier version of this story said Elaine Corbin was about to attend the parade with her children when the shots rang out. In fact, they had attended the parade and were in their hotel when they heard shots. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Frank Morris One person died in the violence that broke out at the end of the Kansas City Super Bowl celebration. 43 year old Elizabeth Galvan was a radio DJ, and well known in the community. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: The violence that broke out at Kansas City's Super Bowl celebration left more than 20 people injured, many of them children, according to police. The one fatality was an adult woman. Lisa Lopez-Galvan was 43 years old and a popular DJ. Frank Morris of member station KCUR is here to tell us more about her. Hi, Frank.FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE: Hi, Juana.SUMMERS: Frank, I want to start by talking about Lisa Lopez-Galvan's excitement for the Super Bowl and the festivities. She was among the thousands of people who showed up there to celebrate, and I understand she was talking about that on her radio show, right?MORRIS: Yeah. Yeah. She hosted a popular, chatty North Texas music show called Taste of Tejano here on KKFI. And the show on Tuesday, the day before the Super Bowl victory parade, she said she was excited for it.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)LISA LOPEZ-GALVAN: I'm glad it's here. I'm glad it's in Kansas City again.UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yes. Yes, definitely.LOPEZ-GALVAN: And that just means we did it. And that's just setting the bar for another one next year.SUMMERS: We know that Galvan was 43 years old. What else can you tell us about her, Frank?MORRIS: Well, she was married with two children, and she DJed wedding parties all over the area, too. On her Facebook page, there's a clip of her promoting an upcoming event.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)LOPEZ-GALVAN: Hey, Kansas City - DJ Lisa G here with a special announcement. Join us this Friday and Saturday as we celebrate Rudy's Tenampa Taqueria - 30th anniversary. You heard that right.MORRIS: And that's the kind of work that DJs do. You know, they become part of the community. And by all accounts, Lopez-Galvan was a very community-minded person. She was the fourth of - she was the youngest of four kids and came from a super musical family. A profile of her in the local newspaper, the Kansas City Hispanic News, says her father, Beto Lopez, was a locally famous Tejano musician and bandleader, and he got her into music - and stuff like this selection that she played on the radio last Tuesday.(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TASTE OF TEJANO")MOMENTO: (Speaking Spanish).SUMMERS: It sounds like, Frank, from what you've been able to learn about her since her death, that she was - she sounds like an incredibly vibrant, energetic person.MORRIS: Yeah. And people loved her. Manny Abarca, a county legislator here, says she was just a pillar of the community.MANNY ABARCA: Lisa was an incredible soul. I oftentimes sit across from her and watch the beaming smile of hers cower over as we talked on her radio show. She is a local legend because she's a cultural icon to us in Kansas City. She's at all the fiestas. She's regularly volunteering her DJ services at community events. Her legacy will be missed.SUMMERS: Frank, what is happening with the investigation into her death, the wounding of so many others, many of them children?MORRIS: Today we learned that there were three - the three people - that two of the three people detained were minors and that the shooting erupted over some kind of disagreement. It wasn't political. It wasn't terrorism. We still don't know what kind of weapons the shooters used. It's an active investigation. Of the juvenile shooting victims, three are still in in-patient care at Children's Mercy Hospital, but six have been discharged, along with three that had other kinds of injuries. It's been a terrible time for the city, and some people wonder if big events like the one yesterday are just a bad idea. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas says they're going to keep right on happening.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)QUINTON LUCAS: We have a plan for a St. Patrick's Day parade in Kansas City. We have parades all the time. I don't think they'll end.MORRIS: Lucas mentioned that the last big event that drew a million people to downtown Kansas City were the Royals' Super Bowl - the Royals' World Series parade in 2015. There were hardly any arrests, and let alone a shooting. The mayor says he's going to contact Lisa Lopez-Galvan's brother, who's a community leader in Kansas City, says he'll be reaching out to him soon.SUMMERS: That's KCUR's Frank Morris. Frank, thank you.MORRIS: Yeah. Thanks a lot, Juana. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: The violence that broke out at Kansas City's Super Bowl celebration left more than 20 people injured, many of them children, according to police. The one fatality was an adult woman. Lisa Lopez-Galvan was 43 years old and a popular DJ. Frank Morris of member station KCUR is here to tell us more about her. Hi, Frank. FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE: Hi, Juana. SUMMERS: Frank, I want to start by talking about Lisa Lopez-Galvan's excitement for the Super Bowl and the festivities. She was among the thousands of people who showed up there to celebrate, and I understand she was talking about that on her radio show, right? MORRIS: Yeah. Yeah. She hosted a popular, chatty North Texas music show called Taste of Tejano here on KKFI. And the show on Tuesday, the day before the Super Bowl victory parade, she said she was excited for it. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) LISA LOPEZ-GALVAN: I'm glad it's here. I'm glad it's in Kansas City again. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yes. Yes, definitely. LOPEZ-GALVAN: And that just means we did it. And that's just setting the bar for another one next year. SUMMERS: We know that Galvan was 43 years old. What else can you tell us about her, Frank? MORRIS: Well, she was married with two children, and she DJed wedding parties all over the area, too. On her Facebook page, there's a clip of her promoting an upcoming event. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) LOPEZ-GALVAN: Hey, Kansas City - DJ Lisa G here with a special announcement. Join us this Friday and Saturday as we celebrate Rudy's Tenampa Taqueria - 30th anniversary. You heard that right. MORRIS: And that's the kind of work that DJs do. You know, they become part of the community. And by all accounts, Lopez-Galvan was a very community-minded person. She was the fourth of - she was the youngest of four kids and came from a super musical family. A profile of her in the local newspaper, the Kansas City Hispanic News, says her father, Beto Lopez, was a locally famous Tejano musician and bandleader, and he got her into music - and stuff like this selection that she played on the radio last Tuesday. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TASTE OF TEJANO") MOMENTO: (Speaking Spanish). SUMMERS: It sounds like, Frank, from what you've been able to learn about her since her death, that she was - she sounds like an incredibly vibrant, energetic person. MORRIS: Yeah. And people loved her. Manny Abarca, a county legislator here, says she was just a pillar of the community. MANNY ABARCA: Lisa was an incredible soul. I oftentimes sit across from her and watch the beaming smile of hers cower over as we talked on her radio show. She is a local legend because she's a cultural icon to us in Kansas City. She's at all the fiestas. She's regularly volunteering her DJ services at community events. Her legacy will be missed. SUMMERS: Frank, what is happening with the investigation into her death, the wounding of so many others, many of them children? MORRIS: Today we learned that there were three - the three people - that two of the three people detained were minors and that the shooting erupted over some kind of disagreement. It wasn't political. It wasn't terrorism. We still don't know what kind of weapons the shooters used. It's an active investigation. Of the juvenile shooting victims, three are still in in-patient care at Children's Mercy Hospital, but six have been discharged, along with three that had other kinds of injuries. It's been a terrible time for the city, and some people wonder if big events like the one yesterday are just a bad idea. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas says they're going to keep right on happening. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) QUINTON LUCAS: We have a plan for a St. Patrick's Day parade in Kansas City. We have parades all the time. I don't think they'll end. MORRIS: Lucas mentioned that the last big event that drew a million people to downtown Kansas City were the Royals' Super Bowl - the Royals' World Series parade in 2015. There were hardly any arrests, and let alone a shooting. The mayor says he's going to contact Lisa Lopez-Galvan's brother, who's a community leader in Kansas City, says he'll be reaching out to him soon. SUMMERS: That's KCUR's Frank Morris. Frank, thank you. MORRIS: Yeah. Thanks a lot, Juana. Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Juana Summers ,  Erika Ryan ,  Sarah Handel NPR's Juana Summers talks to Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas about the shooting at a Super Bowl celebration Wednesday that killed one person and injured more than 20 others. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: Chiefs fans lined the streets of downtown Kansas City yesterday, hoping to catch a glimpse of their Super Bowl-winning football team and celebrate with friends and neighbors. The festivities, though, ended in an all-too-familiar tragedy - a mass shooting that left one person dead and more than 20 injured. Quinton Lucas is the mayor of Kansas City, and he joins us now. Mayor Lucas, thanks for joining us on such a difficult day for your city.QUINTON LUCAS: Thank you for having me, and it's good to talk to you.SUMMERS: I mean, Kansas City is a city that is so intensely devoted to its sports team, particularly its football team, as you and I both know well. And yesterday was supposed to be a day of joy. What is your message for people who are having a hard time making sense of what happened there?LUCAS: You know, there are two things that I have said generally. First is I'm sorry. I was someone who brought my own family to this event. I was someone who had to flee at a shooting. I saw big, giant football players and 8- or 9-year-old children and all types of people running away from harm. I saw officers running in. And the odd thing was, it seemed as if the children were the ones who knew how to handle a mass shooting better than most, as perhaps they've gone through drills and others. It was horrifying. And in many ways, the city, although we certainly had a number of officers and snipers and cameras, we didn't get the job done. And that's something that will live with me for some time.I think the second point is that it is OK to be upset today, even if you were not hit, even if no one in your family was. It's OK to to be confused and conflicted because, frankly, parades should be something that you can go to. You should be able to go to an outdoor event without worrying about - where a shooting may go off nearby. And that is something that I think is really resonating with lots of people. And there were many of them who were there yesterday.SUMMERS: I understand that Lisa Lopez-Galvan, the woman who was killed yesterday, was known as DJ Lisa G, a popular local radio DJ who shared her love for Tejano music with Kansas Citians. Have you been able to get in touch with her family?LUCAS: You know, I have not yet. I know her brother. I actually know her brother very well. He runs a Latino community organization in Kansas City. I know our police department and others have started working with victim advocacy. My goal has been to make sure that we give people just a few days before we inundate them with more calls and messages, but I do plan to speak to them, knowing the family, knowing their impact in our community and, sadly, knowing the heartbreak through their experience.SUMMERS: Over the years, you have been outspoken on regulating guns, as your city has experienced record numbers of homicides in recent years. But at the same time, Missouri's Republican-led state legislature has repeatedly demonstrated a commitment to protecting the rights of gun owners. So, I mean, I just want to ask you, does this ever feel like being stuck between a rock and a hard place? What options do local leaders like yourself have to curb gun violence in their cities without running afoul of state laws?LUCAS: One is stuck between a rock and a hard place. You can constantly run afoul of state laws. And indeed, in my state, there has been a Second Amendment Preservation Act that was supposed to mean that no federal law could supersede state law, which, as you might imagine, is against the U.S. Constitution - every effort where we try to simply say, at the end of the day, the guns matter, too. You know, I have had the chance to speak to you all before. And if there was a weakness, perhaps, of political debates in 2020 and 2021, was that it became an either-or. It's either you need more police or proper funding for them, or you need alternatives to violent crime and gun control. You know, it's not either-or. It's both. And in a city like mine where I've taken very serious flak in recent weeks, I proposed increasing police officer pay by 30%.SUMMERS: Right.LUCAS: We have proposed our highest police budget in our city's history. I think those are important things to do. But it's also important that we figure out a way to prevent. When you have 850 officers and folks who will act recklessly nearby them, who can still get off enough rounds to hit almost two dozen people within just a matter of moments, that tells us that the guns, that the types of guns that we have and their accessibility - easy availability is a problem. And that's a conversation that I will continue to have as long as I have some megaphone with which to share it.SUMMERS: This is all incredibly fresh. But I do want to take a moment here to look forward. Kansas City is a city that loves it celebrations. And I know that there is a big St. Patrick's Day parade scheduled in your city for next month. Are you at this point thinking differently about public celebrations in light of this, the types of precautions that might need to be taken? You pointed out more than 800 officers were on the streets, and yet this still happened.LUCAS: This is probably the hardest part of all for any of us who go to parades with our children, or for loved ones or friends, because I think we're starting to realize a challenge to everything we can do to keep ourselves safe. We can have more officers, and we will. We can have cameras and everything possible. But it is hard to fully protect ourselves if we're in a public space. If there is not a metal detector walking in, if there is not the sort of thing, frankly, that a parade just doesn't allow, then how can we ever fully be safe in a city, a state and perhaps a country where we know that people are freely walking around with AR-15s, with modified handguns with switches, with any number of issues, or frankly, even just your old classic revolver.SUMMERS: Right.LUCAS: If we know that one can act with impunity with that, then it's hard to say we'll ever be fully as safe as I think we'd like to idealize ourselves to be.SUMMERS: Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, thank you for your time. We appreciate it.LUCAS: Thank you. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: Chiefs fans lined the streets of downtown Kansas City yesterday, hoping to catch a glimpse of their Super Bowl-winning football team and celebrate with friends and neighbors. The festivities, though, ended in an all-too-familiar tragedy - a mass shooting that left one person dead and more than 20 injured. Quinton Lucas is the mayor of Kansas City, and he joins us now. Mayor Lucas, thanks for joining us on such a difficult day for your city. QUINTON LUCAS: Thank you for having me, and it's good to talk to you. SUMMERS: I mean, Kansas City is a city that is so intensely devoted to its sports team, particularly its football team, as you and I both know well. And yesterday was supposed to be a day of joy. What is your message for people who are having a hard time making sense of what happened there? LUCAS: You know, there are two things that I have said generally. First is I'm sorry. I was someone who brought my own family to this event. I was someone who had to flee at a shooting. I saw big, giant football players and 8- or 9-year-old children and all types of people running away from harm. I saw officers running in. And the odd thing was, it seemed as if the children were the ones who knew how to handle a mass shooting better than most, as perhaps they've gone through drills and others. It was horrifying. And in many ways, the city, although we certainly had a number of officers and snipers and cameras, we didn't get the job done. And that's something that will live with me for some time. I think the second point is that it is OK to be upset today, even if you were not hit, even if no one in your family was. It's OK to to be confused and conflicted because, frankly, parades should be something that you can go to. You should be able to go to an outdoor event without worrying about - where a shooting may go off nearby. And that is something that I think is really resonating with lots of people. And there were many of them who were there yesterday. SUMMERS: I understand that Lisa Lopez-Galvan, the woman who was killed yesterday, was known as DJ Lisa G, a popular local radio DJ who shared her love for Tejano music with Kansas Citians. Have you been able to get in touch with her family? LUCAS: You know, I have not yet. I know her brother. I actually know her brother very well. He runs a Latino community organization in Kansas City. I know our police department and others have started working with victim advocacy. My goal has been to make sure that we give people just a few days before we inundate them with more calls and messages, but I do plan to speak to them, knowing the family, knowing their impact in our community and, sadly, knowing the heartbreak through their experience. SUMMERS: Over the years, you have been outspoken on regulating guns, as your city has experienced record numbers of homicides in recent years. But at the same time, Missouri's Republican-led state legislature has repeatedly demonstrated a commitment to protecting the rights of gun owners. So, I mean, I just want to ask you, does this ever feel like being stuck between a rock and a hard place? What options do local leaders like yourself have to curb gun violence in their cities without running afoul of state laws? LUCAS: One is stuck between a rock and a hard place. You can constantly run afoul of state laws. And indeed, in my state, there has been a Second Amendment Preservation Act that was supposed to mean that no federal law could supersede state law, which, as you might imagine, is against the U.S. Constitution - every effort where we try to simply say, at the end of the day, the guns matter, too. You know, I have had the chance to speak to you all before. And if there was a weakness, perhaps, of political debates in 2020 and 2021, was that it became an either-or. It's either you need more police or proper funding for them, or you need alternatives to violent crime and gun control. You know, it's not either-or. It's both. And in a city like mine where I've taken very serious flak in recent weeks, I proposed increasing police officer pay by 30%. SUMMERS: Right. LUCAS: We have proposed our highest police budget in our city's history. I think those are important things to do. But it's also important that we figure out a way to prevent. When you have 850 officers and folks who will act recklessly nearby them, who can still get off enough rounds to hit almost two dozen people within just a matter of moments, that tells us that the guns, that the types of guns that we have and their accessibility - easy availability is a problem. And that's a conversation that I will continue to have as long as I have some megaphone with which to share it. SUMMERS: This is all incredibly fresh. But I do want to take a moment here to look forward. Kansas City is a city that loves it celebrations. And I know that there is a big St. Patrick's Day parade scheduled in your city for next month. Are you at this point thinking differently about public celebrations in light of this, the types of precautions that might need to be taken? You pointed out more than 800 officers were on the streets, and yet this still happened. LUCAS: This is probably the hardest part of all for any of us who go to parades with our children, or for loved ones or friends, because I think we're starting to realize a challenge to everything we can do to keep ourselves safe. We can have more officers, and we will. We can have cameras and everything possible. But it is hard to fully protect ourselves if we're in a public space. If there is not a metal detector walking in, if there is not the sort of thing, frankly, that a parade just doesn't allow, then how can we ever fully be safe in a city, a state and perhaps a country where we know that people are freely walking around with AR-15s, with modified handguns with switches, with any number of issues, or frankly, even just your old classic revolver. SUMMERS: Right. LUCAS: If we know that one can act with impunity with that, then it's hard to say we'll ever be fully as safe as I think we'd like to idealize ourselves to be. SUMMERS: Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, thank you for your time. We appreciate it. LUCAS: Thank you. Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Advertisement <iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/hereandnow/2024/02/15/kansas-city-chiefs-parade-shooting"></iframe> One person is dead and dozens more, including children, are injured after a shooting in Kansas City, Missouri, Wednesday. The shooting took place at a street parade celebrating the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory on Sunday. Three people are in custody for the attack. Sam Zeff of member station KCUR joins host Scott Tong with the latest from the city. This segment aired on February 15, 2024. Advertisement

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Suzanne Nuyen Good morning. You're reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day. A woman was killed, and at least 21 others, including children, were injured in a shooting yesterday at the end of the Chiefs Super Bowl parade in Kansas City, Mo. At least three people have been arrested, according to police. Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a mother of two and a popular radio DJ, died in surgery. People flee after shots were fired near the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory parade on Feb.14 in Kansas City, Mo. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images hide caption People flee after shots were fired near the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory parade on Feb.14 in Kansas City, Mo. Russia is developing a space-based nuclear capability that could be used to target satellites, according to a source familiar with the matter. National security adviser Jake Sullivan is expected to meet with House leaders today, though he did not confirm the briefing's topic. The bubonic plague has appeared in Oregon for the first time in nearly a decade. Health officials say the person likely caught it from their cat. Doctors treated the patient with antibiotics and gave their contacts medication. They don't expect the disease to spread or cause any deaths. So, just how dangerous is the disease that caused the Black Death — the 14th-century pandemic that killed 30% to 50% in parts of Europe? Here's what you need to know. Jan Vogler plays a 1707 Stradivari cello made during Bach's lifetime. He compares it to learning to swim in an Olympic pool: "the pressure on me is more to have imagination to match the instrument." Zayrha Rodriguez/NPR hide caption Jan Vogler plays a 1707 Stradivari cello made during Bach's lifetime. He compares it to learning to swim in an Olympic pool: "the pressure on me is more to have imagination to match the instrument." This essay was written by Michel Martin, one of Morning Edition and Up First's hosts. I have a running joke with a producer I work with a lot. Because we're based in different cities, there's a lot of texting or emailing. So when we finally get to talk, some catching up has to happen. If I happen to mention seeing some movie or concert that people are talking about, she invariably asks me, "Are you forever changed?" I find this hilarious because, of course, she wants me to say yes. But the answer is almost always no. But then, a few days ago, I heard Amanda Gorman and Jan Vogler. Vogler is a cellist with a lot of energy and ideas; a few years ago, he worked with actor Bill Murray on a performance that included readings and occasional dancing. It eventually became a documentary. Gorman made history as America's youngest inaugural poet in 2021. Vogler had the notion to pair Gorman's poetry with the Bach cello suites; she agreed. The fruit of their work will be heard at Carnegie Hall on Saturday. I (and now you) had the privilege of a sneak preview. And somehow, yes, I do feel changed. Gorman's work has this remarkable, restorative quality. For some reason, I feel better every time I hear her. Vogler called it her optimism. His music also left me feeling like I was walking on clouds. He said something that has stuck with me: "Poetry, there's this in between the words, and with music, it's the same — in between the notes, actually, the real message happens." Between the notes, between the words...the real message happens. Temu has soared in popularity since it launched in 2022. Here, a photo illustration shows the Temu app in an app store reflected in videos of Temu consumers in Washington, D.C. Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images hide caption Temu has soared in popularity since it launched in 2022. Here, a photo illustration shows the Temu app in an app store reflected in videos of Temu consumers in Washington, D.C. Temu's catchy Super Bowl ad promised users would be able to "shop like a billionaire." The Chinese-owned discount e-commerce app has enjoyed explosive growth in the past year. As of Tuesday, Temu held the top spot on Apple's list of shopping apps, followed by Shein, Shopify and Amazon. Its rise in popularity has fueled skepticism from consumers and U.S. officials alike. Here's what you need to know before shopping: Temu offers low prices in part because it promises a direct, streamlined link between consumers and Chinese manufacturers. Unlike the fast-fashion company Shein, Temu focuses more on home goods and plasticware than clothing, making it one of Amazon's biggest threats. Lawmakers say Temu is abusing a loophole in a U.S. law that lets companies skip import fees on smaller shipments by sending individual packages to people's homes rather than importing products in bulk. Pinduoduo, the Chinese retailer behind Temu, has for years been on the U.S. list of "Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy." Match Group, which owns dating apps including Tinder and Hinge, was sued on Wednesday in a suit claiming the apps are designed to hook users so the company to make more profit, rather than helping people find romantic partners. Patrick Sison/AP hide caption Match Group, which owns dating apps including Tinder and Hinge, was sued on Wednesday in a suit claiming the apps are designed to hook users so the company to make more profit, rather than helping people find romantic partners. This newsletter was edited by Majd Al-Waheidi. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  A Martínez ,  Frank Morris The victory parade and rally for the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl win turned into a tragedy as one person was killed and several others were injured during a mass shooting A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: Twenty-one people were hurt and one woman was killed when a celebration turned to tragedy in Kansas City.MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: The Chiefs came home for a victory rally to celebrate their Super Bowl win. But just as the players were leaving the stage and the celebration was winding down, gunshots were heard, and people started running. Police say at least three people believed to be connected to the shooting were arrested.MARTÍNEZ: Frank Morris of member station KCUR is covering the story. Joins us now from Kansas City. Frank, Chiefs fans had a lot to be happy about the last couple of years, and yesterday was supposed to be a very happy day, and it was really awful to see so many people running for their lives. What more do we know about what happened?FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE: Well, we learned that the person killed was Lisa Lopez-Galvan. She was a popular radio disc jockey and dedicated Kansas City Chiefs fan. She died in surgery. She had two children. Lots of children turned out for the parade. Nine of them were shot. Stephanie Meyer, senior vice president at Children's Mercy Hospital, where the children were treated, says the kids they brought in there were terrified.STEPHANIE MEYER: Fear. The one word I would use to describe what we saw and how they felt when they came to us was fear.MORRIS: Meyer says all the kids treated at Children's Mercy are doing well and expected to recover. The patients are also expecting visits from members of the Kansas City Chiefs.MARTÍNEZ: All right. So that's a little - at least a little bit of good news. What do we know about the people that police have in custody? And do we have any idea of why they - what happened?MORRIS: No. That's what everybody wants to know. Police haven't released a motive or the names of the suspects. Police arrested three people. At least one of them was carrying a weapon. There was a huge police presence at the event, and some of the crowd reportedly helped bring down one of the suspects. But Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas says it wasn't enough to stop people with guns from destroying what had been a joyous event.QUINTON LUCAS: We had over 800 officers there, staffed, situated all around Union Station. We had security in any number of places, eyes on top of buildings and beyond. And there still is a risk to people. The parades, rallies, schools, movies, it seems like almost nothing is safe.MARTÍNEZ: This was supposed to be a really happy day. Their - you know, the team wins a Super Bowl, and we know the players were there just as all of this was going down. What was the scene leading up to the shooting?MORRIS: Well, the weather was beautiful. I mean, it was sunny, cool, clear, bright, blue sky. The whole event was packed with families, their kids all over playing football in the side streets, dancing, smiling from their parent's shoulders, and the schools canceled classes. They declared it a red snow day so kids could enjoy the parade. Lots of them were there wearing the red number 15 jersey of Kansas City star quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Many others chose the number 87 worn by Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. Throughout the season, especially the run up to the Super Bowl, that relationship between Kelce and his girlfriend, Taylor Swift, brought new fans into the game, and I spoke with people before the shooting, and 12-year-old Sloan Pete (ph) said that Swift made her a Chiefs fan.SLOAN PETE: I watched it with my family at first, but now I watch, like, all the games just to see her.MORRIS: And Sloan's mom, Kim Pete (ph), was like a lot of parents, was just basking in the joy of the moment.KIM PETE: It's good. It's good for the city. I mean, such good memories for these kids. They're very lucky to have all these celebrations.MORRIS: All that joy turned to fear and anger when shots rang out yesterday afternoon. At first, people thought it was fireworks wrapping up the event, but panic spread through the crowd. People stumbled to get away, some leaving chairs, backpacks and baby strollers behind. This morning, authorities continue to investigate the crime, and everyone else is coping with the bewildering anguish that comes after a mass shooting.MARTÍNEZ: That's Frank Morris, reporter with member station KCUR. Frank, thank you.MORRIS: Thank you, A. A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: Twenty-one people were hurt and one woman was killed when a celebration turned to tragedy in Kansas City. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: The Chiefs came home for a victory rally to celebrate their Super Bowl win. But just as the players were leaving the stage and the celebration was winding down, gunshots were heard, and people started running. Police say at least three people believed to be connected to the shooting were arrested. MARTÍNEZ: Frank Morris of member station KCUR is covering the story. Joins us now from Kansas City. Frank, Chiefs fans had a lot to be happy about the last couple of years, and yesterday was supposed to be a very happy day, and it was really awful to see so many people running for their lives. What more do we know about what happened? FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE: Well, we learned that the person killed was Lisa Lopez-Galvan. She was a popular radio disc jockey and dedicated Kansas City Chiefs fan. She died in surgery. She had two children. Lots of children turned out for the parade. Nine of them were shot. Stephanie Meyer, senior vice president at Children's Mercy Hospital, where the children were treated, says the kids they brought in there were terrified. STEPHANIE MEYER: Fear. The one word I would use to describe what we saw and how they felt when they came to us was fear. MORRIS: Meyer says all the kids treated at Children's Mercy are doing well and expected to recover. The patients are also expecting visits from members of the Kansas City Chiefs. MARTÍNEZ: All right. So that's a little - at least a little bit of good news. What do we know about the people that police have in custody? And do we have any idea of why they - what happened? MORRIS: No. That's what everybody wants to know. Police haven't released a motive or the names of the suspects. Police arrested three people. At least one of them was carrying a weapon. There was a huge police presence at the event, and some of the crowd reportedly helped bring down one of the suspects. But Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas says it wasn't enough to stop people with guns from destroying what had been a joyous event. QUINTON LUCAS: We had over 800 officers there, staffed, situated all around Union Station. We had security in any number of places, eyes on top of buildings and beyond. And there still is a risk to people. The parades, rallies, schools, movies, it seems like almost nothing is safe. MARTÍNEZ: This was supposed to be a really happy day. Their - you know, the team wins a Super Bowl, and we know the players were there just as all of this was going down. What was the scene leading up to the shooting? MORRIS: Well, the weather was beautiful. I mean, it was sunny, cool, clear, bright, blue sky. The whole event was packed with families, their kids all over playing football in the side streets, dancing, smiling from their parent's shoulders, and the schools canceled classes. They declared it a red snow day so kids could enjoy the parade. Lots of them were there wearing the red number 15 jersey of Kansas City star quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Many others chose the number 87 worn by Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. Throughout the season, especially the run up to the Super Bowl, that relationship between Kelce and his girlfriend, Taylor Swift, brought new fans into the game, and I spoke with people before the shooting, and 12-year-old Sloan Pete (ph) said that Swift made her a Chiefs fan. SLOAN PETE: I watched it with my family at first, but now I watch, like, all the games just to see her. MORRIS: And Sloan's mom, Kim Pete (ph), was like a lot of parents, was just basking in the joy of the moment. KIM PETE: It's good. It's good for the city. I mean, such good memories for these kids. They're very lucky to have all these celebrations. MORRIS: All that joy turned to fear and anger when shots rang out yesterday afternoon. At first, people thought it was fireworks wrapping up the event, but panic spread through the crowd. People stumbled to get away, some leaving chairs, backpacks and baby strollers behind. This morning, authorities continue to investigate the crime, and everyone else is coping with the bewildering anguish that comes after a mass shooting. MARTÍNEZ: That's Frank Morris, reporter with member station KCUR. Frank, thank you. MORRIS: Thank you, A. Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Sharon McCalister People flee after shots were fired near the Kansas City Chiefs' 2024 Super Bowl victory parade on Wednesday in Kansas City, Mo. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images hide caption People flee after shots were fired near the Kansas City Chiefs' 2024 Super Bowl victory parade on Wednesday in Kansas City, Mo. Americans are, once again, expressing outrage over a mass shooting, this time at the end of a parade Wednesday honoring the 2024 Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. One person was killed and at least 21 others were injured in the attack outside Union Station in Kansas City, Mo. Doctors and administrators at Children's Mercy, one of three Kansas City, Mo.-area hospitals where shooting victims were transported, said at a press conference that they treated 11 children. Nine of those children suffered gunshot wounds. Their ages ranged from 6 to 15. Here is the scene: People take cover during a shooting at Union Station during the Kansas City Chiefs' victory celebration. Jamie Squire/Getty Images hide caption An injured person is aided near the Chiefs' Super Bowl victory parade. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds /AFP via Getty Images hide caption Several people were shot and two people were detained after a rally celebrating the Chiefs' Super Bowl victory. Jamie Squire/Getty Images hide caption People leave the area following a shooting at Union Station. Jamie Squire/Getty Images hide caption An injured person is helped near the Chiefs' victory parade. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds /AFP via Getty Images hide caption People flee after shots were fired near the victory parade. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds /AFP via Getty Images hide caption People take cover during a shooting at Union Station. Jamie Squire/Getty Images hide caption Law enforcement responds to a shooting at Union Station during the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory parade. Jamie Squire/Getty Images hide caption Law enforcement and medical personnel respond to a shooting at Union Station. Jamie Squire/Getty Images hide caption Emergency personnel (left) take a stretcher into Union Station. Reed Hoffmann/AP hide caption The Kansas City Chiefs celebrate during their victory rally at Union Station in Kansas City, Mo. Charlie Riedel/AP hide caption Law enforcement and medical personnel respond to a shooting at Union Station during the Kansas City Chiefs' 2024 Super Bowl victory parade. Jamie Squire/Getty Images hide caption Members of law enforcement respond to a shooting at Union Station during the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory parade. David Eulitt/Getty Images hide caption Multiple people were injured after gunfire erupted at the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory rally on Wednesday, local police said. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds /AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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By  Frank Morris Soon after the victory celebration for the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs ended, shots were fired nearby — breaking the joyful mood of thousands who had come to take part in the day. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: Just minutes after the victory celebration for the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs ended today, shots rang out nearby. Fans and Chiefs personnel fled during the chaos, and police now say that at least one person is dead and more than 20 injured. Among those are children. Officials also say that they have detained three suspects and recovered weapons from the scene. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said he and his wife were among those who fled the gunshots. He spoke to reporters earlier this evening.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)QUINTON LUCAS: Parades, rallies, schools, movies - it seems like almost nothing is safe. And we had hundreds of law enforcement there working hard today.SUMMERS: Frank Morris with member station KCUR was at that rally and is following this breaking story for us. Hi, Frank.FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE: Hi, Juana.SUMMERS: I mean, Frank, this was a celebration that so many people there in Kansas City were looking forward to, so many Chiefs fans were. Just tell us what happened.MORRIS: Ah, well, you know, it was a beautiful day. The sky was clear. It was about 55 degrees. Lots more people showed up for this parade than the other two Super Bowl parades we've had in the last few years because the weather was so nice. People were just packed along the parade route. Everybody's wearing red. Sky's blue. You got this gold and red confetti all fluttering around. And then just at the end of the rally, the rally where all the players spoke and all thanks were exchanged, there was gunshots - shots fired right outside Union Station, the big 100-year-old train station in Kansas City where the rally took place. Kansas City, Mo. Police Chief Stacey Graves spoke with reporters later.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)STACEY GRAVES: I'm angry at what happened today. The people who came to this celebration should expect a safe environment. We had over 800 law enforcement officers, Kansas City and other agencies, at the location to keep everyone safe. Because of bad actors, which were very few, this tragedy occurred.MORRIS: And those 800 law enforcement officers moved people out in a pretty orderly way, but there was a little bit of panic. People hurried away, leaving strollers, chairs and backpacks littered on the ground with the confetti. Police, as you say, apprehended three suspects, including one that fans helped to apprehend.SUMMERS: And Frank, at this point, do we know anything about the victims in the shooting?MORRIS: Well, we have - we had - the numbers keep going up and - the number of victims, at least 22 gunshot victims. One person has died. Eight people were transported to hospitals with immediate life-threatening injuries. And that's about the sum of what we know right now.SUMMERS: I mean, I'm hoping, Frank, that you can just paint a picture for us. You were there. The day certainly did not start out with people thinking this would happen. Can you just tell us what it was like before the shots rang out there?MORRIS: It was so joyous, you know? And the thing that strikes you about these parades in Kansas City, at least, you know, it's people from all over the region - Texas to Iowa and beyond - and from every walk of life. You know, every kind of social and political division was just erased. And Taja Kocourek was watching the parade with a huge smile on her face and struck by all the love surrounding the Kansas City Chiefs.TAJA KOCOUREK: Oh, it's excitement. Everything's electric. Here to celebrate with the whole city - a lot of happy, excited people.MORRIS: And of course, that all just ended in a moment when those shots rang out.SUMMERS: Frank, in just a couple of sentences - I know we heard earlier from Mayor Quinton Lucas; he talked about gun violence - anything else that stuck out to you from that press conference?MORRIS: No. You know, I mean, there is a problem with gun violence in Kansas City. It's an ongoing problem. But this is the first one of these really big mass shootings that the city has suffered through.SUMMERS: Frank Morris with member station KCUR in Kansas City. Frank, thanks for your reporting.MORRIS: Thank you, Juana. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: Just minutes after the victory celebration for the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs ended today, shots rang out nearby. Fans and Chiefs personnel fled during the chaos, and police now say that at least one person is dead and more than 20 injured. Among those are children. Officials also say that they have detained three suspects and recovered weapons from the scene. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said he and his wife were among those who fled the gunshots. He spoke to reporters earlier this evening. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) QUINTON LUCAS: Parades, rallies, schools, movies - it seems like almost nothing is safe. And we had hundreds of law enforcement there working hard today. SUMMERS: Frank Morris with member station KCUR was at that rally and is following this breaking story for us. Hi, Frank. FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE: Hi, Juana. SUMMERS: I mean, Frank, this was a celebration that so many people there in Kansas City were looking forward to, so many Chiefs fans were. Just tell us what happened. MORRIS: Ah, well, you know, it was a beautiful day. The sky was clear. It was about 55 degrees. Lots more people showed up for this parade than the other two Super Bowl parades we've had in the last few years because the weather was so nice. People were just packed along the parade route. Everybody's wearing red. Sky's blue. You got this gold and red confetti all fluttering around. And then just at the end of the rally, the rally where all the players spoke and all thanks were exchanged, there was gunshots - shots fired right outside Union Station, the big 100-year-old train station in Kansas City where the rally took place. Kansas City, Mo. Police Chief Stacey Graves spoke with reporters later. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) STACEY GRAVES: I'm angry at what happened today. The people who came to this celebration should expect a safe environment. We had over 800 law enforcement officers, Kansas City and other agencies, at the location to keep everyone safe. Because of bad actors, which were very few, this tragedy occurred. MORRIS: And those 800 law enforcement officers moved people out in a pretty orderly way, but there was a little bit of panic. People hurried away, leaving strollers, chairs and backpacks littered on the ground with the confetti. Police, as you say, apprehended three suspects, including one that fans helped to apprehend. SUMMERS: And Frank, at this point, do we know anything about the victims in the shooting? MORRIS: Well, we have - we had - the numbers keep going up and - the number of victims, at least 22 gunshot victims. One person has died. Eight people were transported to hospitals with immediate life-threatening injuries. And that's about the sum of what we know right now. SUMMERS: I mean, I'm hoping, Frank, that you can just paint a picture for us. You were there. The day certainly did not start out with people thinking this would happen. Can you just tell us what it was like before the shots rang out there? MORRIS: It was so joyous, you know? And the thing that strikes you about these parades in Kansas City, at least, you know, it's people from all over the region - Texas to Iowa and beyond - and from every walk of life. You know, every kind of social and political division was just erased. And Taja Kocourek was watching the parade with a huge smile on her face and struck by all the love surrounding the Kansas City Chiefs. TAJA KOCOUREK: Oh, it's excitement. Everything's electric. Here to celebrate with the whole city - a lot of happy, excited people. MORRIS: And of course, that all just ended in a moment when those shots rang out. SUMMERS: Frank, in just a couple of sentences - I know we heard earlier from Mayor Quinton Lucas; he talked about gun violence - anything else that stuck out to you from that press conference? MORRIS: No. You know, I mean, there is a problem with gun violence in Kansas City. It's an ongoing problem. But this is the first one of these really big mass shootings that the city has suffered through. SUMMERS: Frank Morris with member station KCUR in Kansas City. Frank, thanks for your reporting. MORRIS: Thank you, Juana. Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Jaclyn Diaz ,  Vanessa Romo ,  Amanda Orr People flee after gunshots were fired near the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory parade on Feb. 14 in Kansas City, Missouri. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images hide caption People flee after gunshots were fired near the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory parade on Feb. 14 in Kansas City, Missouri. Wednesday's shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl celebration does not appear to have been an act of terrorism or homegrown domestic violence, according to the city's police chief. "This appeared to be a dispute between several people that ended in gun violence," Kansas City, Mo., Police Chief Stacey Graves said Thursday at a briefing for the media. Three suspects have been detained following the shooting, which left one person dead and at least 22 others injured. Graves said that two of the suspects were juveniles. No suspect has yet been charged. The shooting happened outside Union Station in Kansas City at the conclusion of a celebration for the Chiefs' Super Bowl win Sunday over the San Francisco 49ers. Graves said that the 23 victims ranged in age from 8 to 47 and that at least half were under age 16. This number includes the one fatality: 43-year-old Elizabeth Galvan — who has also been identified as Lisa Lopez-Galvan — a DJ at local radio station KKFI and a mother of two. "It is with sincere sadness and an extremely heavy and broken heart that we let our community know that KKFI DJ Lisa Lopez-Galvan, host of Taste of Tejano lost her life today in the shooting at the KC Chiefs' rally. Our hearts and prayers are with her family," the station said in a Facebook post on Wednesday night. "This senseless act has taken a beautiful person from her family and this KC Community," the statement added. One suspect was captured after a foot chase with officers, according to Graves. "I'm angry at what happened today," Graves told reporters on Wednesday. "The people who came to this celebration should expect a safe environment." "This is not Kansas City," she added at the end of the news conference. At least one firearm has been recovered, she said. People take cover during the shooting at Union Station shortly following the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory parade on Feb. 14 in Kansas City, Missouri. Jamie Squire/Getty Images hide caption People take cover during the shooting at Union Station shortly following the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory parade on Feb. 14 in Kansas City, Missouri. "The Super Bowl is the most unifying event in America," President Biden said in a statement on Wednesday. "For this joy to be turned to tragedy today in Kansas City cuts deep in the American soul. Today's events should move us, shock us, shame us into acting." Vice President Harris said on X on Wednesday, "Today was supposed to be a day of celebration and joy in Kansas City. Instead, it is another day where America has experienced senseless gun violence. It doesn't have to be this way. It's unclear yet how many fans attended the celebration, but NPR member station KCUR said that during last year's victory parade, close to 1 million people flooded downtown for the rally. In preparation for the expected crowd size Wednesday, 800 law enforcement officers were on scene for the parade, Graves said. The heavy police presence helped in guiding fans to safety once the shooting began and also in administering lifesaving aid to gunshot victims, she said. The shooting, west of Union Station, started right after the parade rally with Chiefs players including Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce had ended, Graves said. Videos of the scene shared on social media show crowds of people running away from Union Station as officers rush in. A law enforcement officer looks around the scene after the shooting following the Kansas City Chiefs' victory parade on Wednesday. Charlie Riedel/AP hide caption A law enforcement officer looks around the scene after the shooting following the Kansas City Chiefs' victory parade on Wednesday. KCUR reported that Children's Mercy Hospital received 12 patients from the rally, 11 of them children and nine of them with gunshot wounds. Fire Chief Ross Grundyson couldn't immediately confirm the ages of the victims, but doctors and administrators at Children's Mercy confirmed at a news conference that they treated the children and their ages ranged from 6 to 15. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said during Wednesday's news conference that he had debated bringing his own child to the celebration. He was at the parade along with his wife and mother, he said. "I, like many others, ran for safety," when the shooting began, Lucas said. In a message directed at the city's residents, the mayor said he is angry and "heartbroken." "This is a day that a lot of people look forward to, something they remember for a lifetime. What they shouldn't have to remember is the threat of gun violence marring a day like this, injuring them and their families," he said. Other dignitaries were at the victory rally as well. Kansas City Chiefs fans gather at Union Station for the Super Bowl victory rally on Wednesday. Reed Hoffmann/AP hide caption Kansas City Chiefs fans gather at Union Station for the Super Bowl victory rally on Wednesday. They included Missouri Gov. Mike Parson and first lady Teresa Parson, as well as Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly. "State law enforcement personnel are assisting local authorities in response efforts. As we wait to learn more, our hearts go out to the victims," Gov. Parson posted on X. Kelly said on X that she was evacuated from the scene and "out of harm's way." Mayor Lucas said the Chiefs have been in contact with officials, and he shared that the team's players, coaches and staff were all accounted for and safe. Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who just hours before was riding triumphantly through the city, also took to social media following news of the tragedy. He posted, "Praying for Kansas City..." Praying for Kansas City… 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 The day started off with thousands of cheering fans draped in the team's colors of red, gold and white as members of the team rode a bus through the city's downtown. The parade was scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. local time with a rally to start at Union Station right after the parade ended, around 12:45 p.m. Police issued reports of shots fired at around 2:30 p.m. CT. This tragedy comes after Kansas City suffered a record year for homicides in 2023, according to KCUR. Last year, 185 homicides were recorded — the most in its history and surpassing the previous record set in 2020. Through 45 days of 2024, the shooting was already the 49th mass shooting of the year, according to figures compiled by the Gun Violence Archive. The site defines a mass shooting as any event in which four or more people are shot, whether injured or killed. It was also the third in Kansas City alone. This is a developing story and will be updated. Follow live coverage from member station KCUR. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Advertisement <iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/hereandnow/2024/02/14/lewiston-shooting-subpoena"></iframe> Maine Gov. Janet Mills has signed a law that gives subpoena powers to an independent commission investigating whether more could have been done to stop the October shooting in Lewiston. Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd speaks with Steve Mistler, chief politics and government correspondent at Maine Public. This segment aired on February 14, 2024. Advertisement

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Sophia Saliby When a tragedy happens, people often create makeshift memorials. A year after a shooting at Michigan State University, museum staff are preserving items to make sure the tragedy there isn't forgotten. MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: It's been one year since a gunman killed three students and wounded five at Michigan State University. In the immediate aftermath, students and others in the community left tributes like cards and bouquets. In the months since then, staff at the university's museum have worked to preserve and document what was left behind. Sophia Saliby of member station WKAR in East Lansing reports.SOPHIA SALIBY, BYLINE: In the days after last year's shooting, spaces all around MSU's campus became makeshift memorials.UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Oh, that's the dog.SALIBY: And thousands showed up when students came back to class, including people like community member Victoria VanHolder, who held a sign offering free hugs.VICTORIA VANHOLDER: For me personally, I wanted to support the students and the younger generation 'cause I have empathy for what they're going through.SALIBY: VanHolder stood right across from the university's Spartan Statue, a campus landmark. Flowers and candles and cards surrounded it. There was memorabilia left at other places, too, more than 1,500 unique items, says MSU Museum director Devon Akmon. And his team got to work collecting them so nothing would end up being destroyed by the elements.DEVON AKMON: A lot of these materials were wet.SALIBY: From stuffed animals to handmade crocheted hearts.AKMON: It was winter. It was cold. So we had to do a lot of preliminary work and just drying out and stabilizing the materials.SALIBY: Akmon says he's also been moved by the notes people left on campus.AKMON: There are numbers of sealed letters which were very obviously private, and, you know, those have remained sealed to this day. We don't know what was expressed in those.SALIBY: It's taken time to process it all, and Akmon says it's been intense work.AKMON: We have to be really mindful that it's really difficult to work with this stuff, and we are Spartans. We're graduates. We are employees. We're part of this community, so this has taken a toll on us as well.SALIBY: What to do with this type of memorabilia after tragedy has become more common after shootings on college campuses, from Kent State in 1970 to the University of Iowa in 1991 to last December's massacre at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Aaron Purcell is the director of special collections and university archives at Virginia Tech. The nation's most deadly college shooting occurred there in 2007, when 32 people were killed and more than 20 injured. Purcell says one of his first jobs at the university was moving the school's condolence collection into storage space. Now he often hears from other communities after mass shootings happen.AARON PURCELL: Right around the holidays, I heard from my equivalent, a director archivist at UNLV, asking me these exact same questions. And then we heard from someone in Maine that they were trying to document what happened in Lewiston.SALIBY: And Purcell says it's not only about documenting the trauma.PURCELL: This collection is a real good way to remember that, the significance of the outpouring, not the event itself, but the outpouring and how this was like a cultural touchstone.SALIBY: Mary Worrall, the head of collections at the MSU Museum, agrees, saying the materials they've gathered after the shooting in East Lansing have taken on greater meaning.MARY WORRALL: For those of us who are drawn to museum work, a lot of that is because we really have a respect for the power that an object holds.SALIBY: For now, MSU museum staff will continue to catalog, digitize and store the objects left to honor the victims of last year's shooting and the resolve of the Michigan State University community. For NPR News, I'm Sophia Saliby.(SOUNDBITE OF KENDRICK LAMAR SONG, "SING ABOUT ME, I'M DYING OF THIRST") MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: It's been one year since a gunman killed three students and wounded five at Michigan State University. In the immediate aftermath, students and others in the community left tributes like cards and bouquets. In the months since then, staff at the university's museum have worked to preserve and document what was left behind. Sophia Saliby of member station WKAR in East Lansing reports. SOPHIA SALIBY, BYLINE: In the days after last year's shooting, spaces all around MSU's campus became makeshift memorials. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Oh, that's the dog. SALIBY: And thousands showed up when students came back to class, including people like community member Victoria VanHolder, who held a sign offering free hugs. VICTORIA VANHOLDER: For me personally, I wanted to support the students and the younger generation 'cause I have empathy for what they're going through. SALIBY: VanHolder stood right across from the university's Spartan Statue, a campus landmark. Flowers and candles and cards surrounded it. There was memorabilia left at other places, too, more than 1,500 unique items, says MSU Museum director Devon Akmon. And his team got to work collecting them so nothing would end up being destroyed by the elements. DEVON AKMON: A lot of these materials were wet. SALIBY: From stuffed animals to handmade crocheted hearts. AKMON: It was winter. It was cold. So we had to do a lot of preliminary work and just drying out and stabilizing the materials. SALIBY: Akmon says he's also been moved by the notes people left on campus. AKMON: There are numbers of sealed letters which were very obviously private, and, you know, those have remained sealed to this day. We don't know what was expressed in those. SALIBY: It's taken time to process it all, and Akmon says it's been intense work. AKMON: We have to be really mindful that it's really difficult to work with this stuff, and we are Spartans. We're graduates. We are employees. We're part of this community, so this has taken a toll on us as well. SALIBY: What to do with this type of memorabilia after tragedy has become more common after shootings on college campuses, from Kent State in 1970 to the University of Iowa in 1991 to last December's massacre at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Aaron Purcell is the director of special collections and university archives at Virginia Tech. The nation's most deadly college shooting occurred there in 2007, when 32 people were killed and more than 20 injured. Purcell says one of his first jobs at the university was moving the school's condolence collection into storage space. Now he often hears from other communities after mass shootings happen. AARON PURCELL: Right around the holidays, I heard from my equivalent, a director archivist at UNLV, asking me these exact same questions. And then we heard from someone in Maine that they were trying to document what happened in Lewiston. SALIBY: And Purcell says it's not only about documenting the trauma. PURCELL: This collection is a real good way to remember that, the significance of the outpouring, not the event itself, but the outpouring and how this was like a cultural touchstone. SALIBY: Mary Worrall, the head of collections at the MSU Museum, agrees, saying the materials they've gathered after the shooting in East Lansing have taken on greater meaning. MARY WORRALL: For those of us who are drawn to museum work, a lot of that is because we really have a respect for the power that an object holds. SALIBY: For now, MSU museum staff will continue to catalog, digitize and store the objects left to honor the victims of last year's shooting and the resolve of the Michigan State University community. For NPR News, I'm Sophia Saliby. (SOUNDBITE OF KENDRICK LAMAR SONG, "SING ABOUT ME, I'M DYING OF THIRST") Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to Steve St. Juliana, his daughter Hana was killed in the 2021 Oxford schools shooting. The shooter's mother, Jennifer Crumbley, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: A jury says Jennifer Crumbley is guilty of a role in a mass shooting. She did not pull the trigger. Ethan Crumbley, her then-15-year-old son, killed four students at Michigan's Oxford High School in 2021. She was accused of involuntary manslaughter for her failure to heed the warning signs about her son. We have called Steve St. Juliana, who is the father of Hana St. Juliana, the youngest victim in the shooting. She was 14 at the time. Mr. Juliana (ph), welcome to the program. I'm sorry for your loss.STEVE ST JULIANA: Thank you.INSKEEP: What do you make of this verdict?ST JULIANA: I think it's just the first piece of the puzzle in holding people accountable and that accountability leading to change.INSKEEP: I guess we should remind people, if they need to be reminded, of some of the facts in this case. It was considered extraordinary, not only because there was this disturbed individual who opened fire, but because there had been warning signs. He had done violent drawings. He had written desperate messages. And the allegation was that his parents seemed not to act. Do you believe that his parents could have prevented this?ST JULIANA: Oh, absolutely. There was numerous occasions and just small actions that could have avoided this, from both the parents and the school.INSKEEP: The parents and the school - who else do you hold responsible for this?ST JULIANA: Definitely the school. And it's not so much that myself and the families are looking for punishment as much as we're looking for them to acknowledge their mistakes so that they can be corrected, and we can be sure that they're never repeated again. And there were numerous mistakes.INSKEEP: Let's talk about that. What message would you want other parents to receive from this verdict?ST JULIANA: Well, this verdict - it should be a wake-up call to parents, to, you know, pay more attention, to take responsibility, you know, especially within your own family, because nobody else can. And it's - like I said, it's kind of hopefully the first step to making some change.INSKEEP: I suppose we should just note, when someone is a minor, parents have enormous authority, and government officials have somewhat limited authority, in many cases, to act. It is up to the parents in this circumstance and to some extent up to the school as well, right?ST JULIANA: Yeah. It's a combination of both. And depending on the situation - I mean, obviously, the parents have the greater piece of the responsibility there, obviously. But you know, while the child is in school, the schools have greater responsibilities but have become afraid of parents, to be quite blunt. I mean, you know, they tend to not discipline like they used to. But in this case, you had a parent that came in, just kind of ran over the school and refused to take the kid home, and the school just caved instead of doing what they should have.INSKEEP: Mr. Juliana, if I'm not mistaken, you sat through this trial. You've relived these episodes more than once. How are you doing? And how's your family doing?ST JULIANA: That's a tricky question. That's - it's just kind of - we just take it - continue to take it one day at a time. The trial - you know, there's nothing that's going to bring my daughter back. So it's really more about the future with the trials, etc., just trying to wake people up and secure some change that hopefully avoids this in the future.INSKEEP: Is the process helping?ST JULIANA: The - is the process helping? Could you explain that?INSKEEP: I mean, do you feel that the time you've spent in court, the process going forward, re-examining this is, in fact, pushing toward change, leading to change?ST JULIANA: I believe so. I think the verdict that came out today, like I said, is the first step, but it's going to be a very long haul, uphill.INSKEEP: Yeah. Mr. Juliana, thanks so much.ST JULIANA: Thank you.INSKEEP: Steve St. Juliana is the father of Hana St. Juliana, killed at age 14. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: A jury says Jennifer Crumbley is guilty of a role in a mass shooting. She did not pull the trigger. Ethan Crumbley, her then-15-year-old son, killed four students at Michigan's Oxford High School in 2021. She was accused of involuntary manslaughter for her failure to heed the warning signs about her son. We have called Steve St. Juliana, who is the father of Hana St. Juliana, the youngest victim in the shooting. She was 14 at the time. Mr. Juliana (ph), welcome to the program. I'm sorry for your loss. STEVE ST JULIANA: Thank you. INSKEEP: What do you make of this verdict? ST JULIANA: I think it's just the first piece of the puzzle in holding people accountable and that accountability leading to change. INSKEEP: I guess we should remind people, if they need to be reminded, of some of the facts in this case. It was considered extraordinary, not only because there was this disturbed individual who opened fire, but because there had been warning signs. He had done violent drawings. He had written desperate messages. And the allegation was that his parents seemed not to act. Do you believe that his parents could have prevented this? ST JULIANA: Oh, absolutely. There was numerous occasions and just small actions that could have avoided this, from both the parents and the school. INSKEEP: The parents and the school - who else do you hold responsible for this? ST JULIANA: Definitely the school. And it's not so much that myself and the families are looking for punishment as much as we're looking for them to acknowledge their mistakes so that they can be corrected, and we can be sure that they're never repeated again. And there were numerous mistakes. INSKEEP: Let's talk about that. What message would you want other parents to receive from this verdict? ST JULIANA: Well, this verdict - it should be a wake-up call to parents, to, you know, pay more attention, to take responsibility, you know, especially within your own family, because nobody else can. And it's - like I said, it's kind of hopefully the first step to making some change. INSKEEP: I suppose we should just note, when someone is a minor, parents have enormous authority, and government officials have somewhat limited authority, in many cases, to act. It is up to the parents in this circumstance and to some extent up to the school as well, right? ST JULIANA: Yeah. It's a combination of both. And depending on the situation - I mean, obviously, the parents have the greater piece of the responsibility there, obviously. But you know, while the child is in school, the schools have greater responsibilities but have become afraid of parents, to be quite blunt. I mean, you know, they tend to not discipline like they used to. But in this case, you had a parent that came in, just kind of ran over the school and refused to take the kid home, and the school just caved instead of doing what they should have. INSKEEP: Mr. Juliana, if I'm not mistaken, you sat through this trial. You've relived these episodes more than once. How are you doing? And how's your family doing? ST JULIANA: That's a tricky question. That's - it's just kind of - we just take it - continue to take it one day at a time. The trial - you know, there's nothing that's going to bring my daughter back. So it's really more about the future with the trials, etc., just trying to wake people up and secure some change that hopefully avoids this in the future. INSKEEP: Is the process helping? ST JULIANA: The - is the process helping? Could you explain that? INSKEEP: I mean, do you feel that the time you've spent in court, the process going forward, re-examining this is, in fact, pushing toward change, leading to change? ST JULIANA: I believe so. I think the verdict that came out today, like I said, is the first step, but it's going to be a very long haul, uphill. INSKEEP: Yeah. Mr. Juliana, thanks so much. ST JULIANA: Thank you. INSKEEP: Steve St. Juliana is the father of Hana St. Juliana, killed at age 14. Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Quinn Klinefelter A jury returns a verdict in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Jennifer Crumbley, the parent of teenager who shot and killed fellow students and wounded other people at Oxford High School in 2021. SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST: In a Michigan courtroom today, a jury foreman announced a verdict in a trial of a mother charged with involuntary manslaughter as a result of the murderous action of her son.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: On count one of involuntary manslaughter, as to Madisyn Baldwin, we find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter.PFEIFFER: The jury found that Jennifer Crumbley was criminally responsible for her son killing four students and wounding seven other people at Oxford High School in November 2021. Crumbley and her husband, James, were each charged with involuntary manslaughter and are being tried separately. Quinn Klinefelter with member station WDET is following the case and is with us. Hi, Quinn.QUINN KLINEFELTER, BYLINE: Hello.PFEIFFER: Quinn, as you know, there are experts saying this case sets a precedent that holds a parent legally responsible for the criminal actions of their child. Given that, what was it like in the courtroom? And what was the reaction of Jennifer Crumbley when the verdict was announced?KLINEFELTER: It was a pretty packed courtroom. Family members of the victims were there. There didn't seem to be anybody on hand for Jennifer Crumbley, just as there has not been throughout the trial. When she came in, she didn't show much emotion, although she and her attorney did seem a bit tense. They kept putting on ChapStick. She kept her head down. It was different for the family members. They shook hands and hugged the prosecutors when the verdict came.PFEIFFER: This was a shooting that occurred when Crumbley's son Ethan was 15. He's since been sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors had argued that Jennifer Crumbley ignored her son's mental health. What evidence did they present for that?KLINEFELTER: Well, prosecutors used texts, Facebook messages and journal entries that said Crumbley's son was hallucinating, seeing things flying in their home, and that his parents were ignoring any pleas to see a doctor. The defense claimed that Jennifer Crumbley never saw those messages. But throughout the trial, the prosecution painted Crumbley as somebody who was more interested in her horses or her own affairs then how her son was doing. And prosecutor Karen McDonald said Crumbley's own testimony underlined her point when she said her son's actions had ruined so many lives, including her own.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)KAREN MCDONALD: And she was asked the question, you lost everything. And she said, yes. She hasn't lost everything, ladies and gentlemen. Her son is still alive.PFEIFFER: Quinn, prosecutors presented several witnesses, but the defense presented just one, Jennifer Crumbley, who testified on her own behalf. Was that a surprise that she was the only defense witness? And what did she have to say?KLINEFELTER: It was a little bit of a surprise. She said she had no idea that her son was as troubled as he was, that she did not take him home from school the day of the shooting because counselors there assured her that he was not an immediate threat to anyone. And her attorney, Shannon Smith, argued the prosecution was wrong when it claimed Crumbley did not keep a gun securely locked away from her son, a gun the parents had bought him just days before the shooting as an early Christmas present.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)SHANNON SMITH: No parent would purchase a weapon if they believed their child had mental illnesses.PFEIFFER: Why are the parents being tried separately?KLINEFELTER: Because they requested it. Their attorneys said some new evidence had come up that could pit the parents against each other, evidence that apparently involves who was responsible for keeping the gun secure and away from their son. In fact, this verdict could have big implications for the husband, James Crumbley's, trial. His trial is set for next month. He faces identical charges.PFEIFFER: Jennifer Crumbley's sentencing is set for April 9. What kind of sentence could she get?KLINEFELTER: Involuntary manslaughter carries a penalty of as much as 15 years in prison.PFEIFFER: That is WDET'S Quinn Klinefelter. Thank you.KLINEFELTER: You're welcome. SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST: In a Michigan courtroom today, a jury foreman announced a verdict in a trial of a mother charged with involuntary manslaughter as a result of the murderous action of her son. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: On count one of involuntary manslaughter, as to Madisyn Baldwin, we find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter. PFEIFFER: The jury found that Jennifer Crumbley was criminally responsible for her son killing four students and wounding seven other people at Oxford High School in November 2021. Crumbley and her husband, James, were each charged with involuntary manslaughter and are being tried separately. Quinn Klinefelter with member station WDET is following the case and is with us. Hi, Quinn. QUINN KLINEFELTER, BYLINE: Hello. PFEIFFER: Quinn, as you know, there are experts saying this case sets a precedent that holds a parent legally responsible for the criminal actions of their child. Given that, what was it like in the courtroom? And what was the reaction of Jennifer Crumbley when the verdict was announced? KLINEFELTER: It was a pretty packed courtroom. Family members of the victims were there. There didn't seem to be anybody on hand for Jennifer Crumbley, just as there has not been throughout the trial. When she came in, she didn't show much emotion, although she and her attorney did seem a bit tense. They kept putting on ChapStick. She kept her head down. It was different for the family members. They shook hands and hugged the prosecutors when the verdict came. PFEIFFER: This was a shooting that occurred when Crumbley's son Ethan was 15. He's since been sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors had argued that Jennifer Crumbley ignored her son's mental health. What evidence did they present for that? KLINEFELTER: Well, prosecutors used texts, Facebook messages and journal entries that said Crumbley's son was hallucinating, seeing things flying in their home, and that his parents were ignoring any pleas to see a doctor. The defense claimed that Jennifer Crumbley never saw those messages. But throughout the trial, the prosecution painted Crumbley as somebody who was more interested in her horses or her own affairs then how her son was doing. And prosecutor Karen McDonald said Crumbley's own testimony underlined her point when she said her son's actions had ruined so many lives, including her own. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) KAREN MCDONALD: And she was asked the question, you lost everything. And she said, yes. She hasn't lost everything, ladies and gentlemen. Her son is still alive. PFEIFFER: Quinn, prosecutors presented several witnesses, but the defense presented just one, Jennifer Crumbley, who testified on her own behalf. Was that a surprise that she was the only defense witness? And what did she have to say? KLINEFELTER: It was a little bit of a surprise. She said she had no idea that her son was as troubled as he was, that she did not take him home from school the day of the shooting because counselors there assured her that he was not an immediate threat to anyone. And her attorney, Shannon Smith, argued the prosecution was wrong when it claimed Crumbley did not keep a gun securely locked away from her son, a gun the parents had bought him just days before the shooting as an early Christmas present. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) SHANNON SMITH: No parent would purchase a weapon if they believed their child had mental illnesses. PFEIFFER: Why are the parents being tried separately? KLINEFELTER: Because they requested it. Their attorneys said some new evidence had come up that could pit the parents against each other, evidence that apparently involves who was responsible for keeping the gun secure and away from their son. In fact, this verdict could have big implications for the husband, James Crumbley's, trial. His trial is set for next month. He faces identical charges. PFEIFFER: Jennifer Crumbley's sentencing is set for April 9. What kind of sentence could she get? KLINEFELTER: Involuntary manslaughter carries a penalty of as much as 15 years in prison. PFEIFFER: That is WDET'S Quinn Klinefelter. Thank you. KLINEFELTER: You're welcome. Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Quinn Klinefelter Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of Oxford school shooter Ethan Crumbley, enters the courtroom in Oakland County Circuit Court on Monday in Pontiac, Mich. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images hide caption Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of Oxford school shooter Ethan Crumbley, enters the courtroom in Oakland County Circuit Court on Monday in Pontiac, Mich. The mother of a Michigan teenager who killed four fellow students and wounded seven other people during a mass shooting at Oxford High School in 2021 was convicted Tuesday in connection with her son's crimes. The jury found Jennifer Crumbley guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter. It's believed to be the first time a parent has been tried for manslaughter in connection with a mass shooting conducted by their child. Jennifer Crumbley showed little emotion as she entered the courtroom along with her attorney. Both bore tense expressions and Crumbley repeatedly applied chap stick to her lips. She kept her head down as the jury foreperson announced the guilty verdicts, one for each of the four Oxford High students gunned-down by her son. It was quite a different reaction from several family members of the victims. After the verdict, they reached out to the prosecutors — hugging and shaking their hands. Prosecutors argued that Crumbley had not taken what they called "simple" steps that could have stopped the massacre from ever happening. They claimed the Crumbleys did not secure a handgun they bought as a present for their son-- the weapon he used at during the shooting rampage at Oxford High School. Prosecutors also maintained Crumbley had ignored signs her son was troubled. They said Crumbley refused their son's request to see a doctor after he told them he was seeing a "demon" throwing bowls across their house and wanted mental help. Throughout the trial the prosecution described Crumbley as someone more interested in her horses and her own affairs than her son. Prosecutor Karen McDonald showed the jury video of Crumbley and her husband seeing their son for the first time at a police station only hours after the shooting. She alleged that even then, Crumbley seemed more concerned with herself than her child. "It's already clear that he is probably never, ever, ever gonna be out of prison for the rest of his life," McDonald said. "She's texting (her boss,) 'Don't judge me based on what he did. I need my job.' " The defense told a different story. Attorney Shannon Smith called Crumbley as her sole witness. She testified that she never saw any messages or outward signs her son could become violent and his talk of hallucinations was him just "messing around" with his parents for fun. Crumbley said she thought any depression her son displayed was due to the loss of his pet dog, the death of his grandmother and his only close friend leaving town. Smith told the jury, "No parent would purchase a weapon if they believed their child had mental illnesses." Crumbley also testified that she did not take her son home from school the day of the shooting because counselors there told her he didn't pose a threat to anyone. "I've asked myself if I would've done anything differently and I wouldn't have," Crumbley said on the stand. "I wish he would've killed us instead." But during closing arguments Prosecutor McDonald argued that Crumbley's testimony underlined the prosecution's point, when the mother said her son's actions had ruined so many lives, including her own. "She was asked the question, 'You lost everything?' She said yes. She hasn't lost everything. Her son is still alive," McDonald said. Legal experts say the verdict against Crumbley could set a national precedent for holding parents responsible for crimes committed by their child. Some predict charging the Crumbleys with something as serious as involuntary manslaughter may have already set a new legal standard. Detroit criminal law attorney William Swor said merely bringing such a case to the trial stage opens the door for parents to face more than misdemeanors or civil penalties. "Holding parents to a criminal liability for what their children do is a big change. This is not the last time we will see this. And it will not be confined to cases where children kill other children," Swor said. The guilty verdict against Jennifer Crumbley could impact the case against her husband, James. His trial on identical involuntary manslaughter charges is set to begin in early March. During her trial, Jennifer Crumbley repeatedly testified that it was James who was responsible for keeping what became the murder weapon secured and away from their son. Jennifer Crumbley's sentencing date is April 9th. She faces as many as 15 years in prison. Her son, Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced late last year to life without parole. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  The Associated Press Actor Alec Baldwin has pleaded not guilty to an involuntary manslaughter charge in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer during a rehearsal on a movie set in New Mexico. Seth Wenig/AP hide caption Actor Alec Baldwin has pleaded not guilty to an involuntary manslaughter charge in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer during a rehearsal on a movie set in New Mexico. SANTA FE, N.M. — Actor Alec Baldwin has pleaded not guilty to an involuntary manslaughter charge in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer during a rehearsal on a Western movie set in New Mexico. Court documents filed Wednesday show Baldwin entered the plea in state district court in Santa Fe, waiving an arraignment that had been scheduled to take place remotely by video conference the next day. Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on the Western movie Rust, was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the gun went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. A grand jury in Santa Fe indicted Baldwin in January after prosecutors received a new analysis of that gun, renewing a charge that prosecutors originally filed and then dismissed in April 2023. Baldwin faces up to 18 months in prison if convicted. Baldwin remains free pending trial under conditions that include not possessing firearms, consuming alcohol or leaving the country. Baldwin can have limited contact with witnesses when it comes to promoting Rust, which has not been released for public viewing. Baldwin is prohibited from asking members of the "Rust" cast or crew to participate in a related documentary film. Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer — but not the trigger — and the gun fired. "Halyna and I had something profound in common, and that is that we both assumed the gun was empty ... other than those dummy rounds," Baldwin told George Stephanopoulos in an interview broadcast in December 2021 on ABC News. The grand jury indictment provides special prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis with two alternative standards for pursuing the felony charge against Baldwin. One would be based on the negligent use of a firearm. A second alternative for prosecutors is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Baldwin caused the death of Hutchins without due caution or "circumspection," also defined as "an act committed with total disregard or indifference for the safety of others." An analysis of the gun conducted by Lucien and Michael Haag of Forensic Science Services in Arizona concluded that "the trigger had to be pulled or depressed sufficiently to release the fully cocked or retracted hammer of the evidence revolver." An earlier FBI report on the agency's analysis of the revolver found that, as is common with firearms of that design, it could go off without pulling the trigger if force was applied to an uncocked hammer, such as by dropping the weapon. The gun eventually broke during testing. Morrissey and Lewis dismissed the earlier charge after they were informed the gun might have been modified before the shooting and malfunctioned. The grand jury heard from a Rust crew member who was a few feet from the fatal shooting and another who walked off the set before the shooting in protest of working conditions. Weapons forensics expert Michael Haag, a Mississippi-based movie armorer and a detective with the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office also testified. Rust weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed also has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, with a jury trial scheduled to start Feb. 22. She has pleaded not guilty to that charge and a second charge of tampering with evidence in Hutchins' death. Gutierrez-Reed also was charged with carrying a gun into a downtown Santa Fe bar days before she was hired to work as the armorer on Rust. She has pleaded not guilty to that charge, too. The fatal shooting of Hutchins resulted in a series of civil lawsuits, including wrongful death claims filed by members of Hutchins' family, centered on accusations that Baldwin and producers of Rust were lax with safety standards. Baldwin and other defendants have disputed those allegations. Rust assistant director and safety coordinator David Halls pleaded no contest to unsafe handling of a firearm last March and received a suspended sentence of six months of probation. He agreed to cooperate in the investigation of the fatal shooting. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  The Associated Press A grand jury indicted Alec Baldwin on Friday on an involuntary manslaughter charge in a 2021 fatal shooting during a rehearsal on a movie set in New Mexico, reviving a dormant case against the A-list actor. Andy Kropa/AP hide caption A grand jury indicted Alec Baldwin on Friday on an involuntary manslaughter charge in a 2021 fatal shooting during a rehearsal on a movie set in New Mexico, reviving a dormant case against the A-list actor. SANTA FE, N.M. — A grand jury indicted Alec Baldwin on Friday on an involuntary manslaughter charge in a 2021 fatal shooting during a rehearsal on a movie set in New Mexico, reviving a dormant case against the actor. Special prosecutors brought the case before a grand jury in Santa Fe this week, months after receiving a new analysis of the gun that was used. They declined to answer questions after spending about a day and a half presenting their case to the grand jury.Defense attorneys for Baldwin indicated they'll fight the charge."We look forward to our day in court," said Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, defense attorneys for Baldwin, in an email. While the proceeding is shrouded in secrecy, two of the witnesses seen at the courthouse included crew members — one who was present when the fatal shot was fired and another who had walked off the set the day before due to safety concerns.Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on the Western movie "Rust," was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the gun went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer, but not the trigger, and the gun fired.The charge has again put Baldwin in legal trouble and created the possibility of prison time for an actor who has been a TV and movie mainstay for nearly 40 years, with roles in the early blockbuster "The Hunt for Red October," Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" and the sitcom "30 Rock."The indictment provides prosecutors with two alternative standards for pursuing an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin in the death of Hutchins. One would be based on negligent use of a firearm, and the other alleges felony misconduct "with the total disregard or indifference for the safety of others."Judges recently agreed to put on hold several civil lawsuits seeking compensation from Baldwin and producers of "Rust" after prosecutors said they would present their case to a grand jury. Plaintiffs in those suits include members of the film crew. Los Angeles-based attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing the slain cinematographer's parents and younger sister in a civil case, said Friday that her clients have been seeking the truth about what happened the day Hutchins was killed and will be looking forward to Baldwin's trial.Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers firm in Los Angeles, pointed to previous missteps by prosecutors, saying they will need to do more than present ballistics evidence to make a case that Baldwin had a broader responsibility and legal duty when it came to handling the gun on the set.Special prosecutors dismissed an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin in April, saying they were informed the gun might have been modified before the shooting and malfunctioned. They later pivoted and began weighing whether to refile a charge against Baldwin after receiving a new analysis of the gun.The analysis from experts in ballistics and forensic testing relied on replacement parts to reassemble the gun fired by Baldwin, after parts of the pistol were broken during testing by the FBI. The report examined the gun and markings it left on a spent cartridge to conclude that the trigger had to have been pulled or depressed.The analysis led by Lucien Haag of Forensic Science Services in Arizona stated that although Baldwin repeatedly denied pulling the trigger, "given the tests, findings and observations reported here, the trigger had to be pulled or depressed sufficiently to release the fully cocked or retracted hammer of the evidence revolver." The weapons supervisor on the movie set, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering in the case. Her trial is scheduled to begin in February."Rust" assistant director and safety coordinator David Halls pleaded no contest to unsafe handling of a firearm last March and received a suspended sentence of six months of probation. He agreed to cooperate in the investigation of the shooting.An earlier FBI report on the agency's analysis of the gun found that, as is common with firearms of that design, it could go off without pulling the trigger if force was applied to an uncocked hammer, such as by dropping the weapon.The only way the testers could get it to fire was by striking the gun with a mallet while the hammer was down and resting on the cartridge, or by pulling the trigger while it was fully cocked. The gun eventually broke during testing.The 2021 shooting resulted in a series of civil lawsuits, including wrongful death claims filed by members of Hutchins' family, centered on accusations that the defendants were lax with safety standards. Baldwin and other defendants have disputed those allegations.The Rust Movie Productions company has paid a $100,000 fine to state workplace safety regulators after a scathing narrative of failures in violation of standard industry protocols, including testimony that production managers took limited or no action to address two misfires on set before the fatal shooting.The filming of "Rust" resumed last year in Montana, under an agreement with the cinematographer's widower, Matthew Hutchins, that made him an executive producer. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Advertisement <iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/hereandnow/2024/01/19/uvalde-shooting-doj-report"></iframe> Families of victims of the Uvalde school shooting have been sharing their reactions after the Department of Justice shared its findings in a 577-page report into the mass shooting. The report heavily criticized local and state law enforcement's handling of the shooting and the aftermath which left 19 children and two teachers dead, with dozens more injured. Families feel like the report still did not go far enough in addressing their grievances. Texas Tribune general assignment reporter Pooja Salhotra joins host Celeste Headlee for the latest. This segment aired on January 19, 2024. Advertisement

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Advertisement <iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/hereandnow/2024/01/18/doj-uvalde-police"></iframe> A new Justice Department report shows that critical failures in police leadership led to the Uvalde school shooting that left 19 dead. We get the latest from NPR's justice correspondent Ryan Lucas. This segment aired on January 18, 2024. Advertisement

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By  Gus Contreras ,  Karen Zamora ,  Juana Summers NPR's Juana Summers speaks with Kimberly Mata-Rubios about the Department of Justice report released today on their findings of the Uvalde school shooting. Her daughter Lexi was one of the 19 students JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: And now we turn to Kimberly Mata-Rubio. Her 10-year-old daughter, Lexi, was one of the 19 students killed at Robb Elementary School that day. We've spoken with Kimberly a number of times on this program in the months since the shooting about her daughter and what her family has been going through. Kimberly, it's good to talk with you again.KIMBERLY MATA-RUBIO: Thank you for having me.SUMMERS: I mean, I have to imagine that today is a hard day on top of hard days for you, your husband, Felix, and your kids. And I know that you were at today's Justice Department briefing. What went through your mind as you heard the details of all the failures that happened that day?MATA-RUBIO: I think we as the families, since the body camera footage was released, have known that there was a massive failure on May 24, 2022. But hearing the U.S. Attorney General say this, now the world knows, too. And no one can hide from it.SUMMERS: This is an extensive report, more than 500 pages all said. So I understand that you, the other families, have not had a chance to read or digest the entire thing. But in what you have seen, is there anything that is particularly meaningful to you?MATA-RUBIO: Some of the quotes by the officers and the instructions not to go into rooms 111, 112 were very hard to read. I was not aware that the crime scene was compromised. That was something I was learning for the first time. And I hope to get a chance to read the report in its entirety in the next few days. So I want to know more about that.SUMMERS: One thing that we heard from some other parents today was that while the names of some of the law enforcement officers who failed to act that day were published in this report, others were not. Why is that important - naming those law enforcement officers?MATA-RUBIO: I think it's important because the community needs to be familiar with who was at fault so they can make decisions themselves and so that we can have accountability. Also, my daughter is listed in this report. She's listed because she was murdered in her fourth grade classroom. She lost the right to privacy. Why do they have the right to privacy?SUMMERS: As you mentioned, Attorney General Merrick Garland is there in Uvalde, and we heard him earlier describing this law enforcement response as a failure. He also spoke to families. What did he say to you and the other families?MATA-RUBIO: He greeted us each personally before the start of the briefing on Wednesday night. For me, he came up, and he saw that I was wearing my Saint Mary's sweater. And he said that he noticed that Lexi had her T-shirt on in her mural, and we discussed her scholarship and her aspirations to be a lawyer one day. He was very emotional when he addressed us as a group. And I really appreciate him coming down and saying what this community needed to hear. Law enforcement response was a failure.SUMMERS: Was there anything that you wish that Garland or other Justice Department officials there in Uvalde had said today that they did not say?MATA-RUBIO: No. I also appreciated that he spoke on, even though it's not listed in the report, the failure by the federal government to have gun legislation in place. That's how we got here. That's how we continue to have these incidents occur.SUMMERS: I mean, we have conversations, unfortunately, like this in the wake of shootings all across this country - in movie theaters and schools and towns big and small. What do you hope will happen next now that all of these details have been made public in this extensive report from the Justice Department?MATA-RUBIO: I hope at the local level that there is accountability for the individuals who are at fault. I hope the DA pushes forward for criminal prosecutions. But I also hope that this serves as a reminder to other communities and law enforcement agencies that this can happen to them and that they should prepare. And even more than that, I hope that Americans wake up and realize that we don't have to live this way and that we should be taking a more proactive response.SUMMERS: Many of the details of the faulty police response described by Attorney General Garland as a failure - they've already been made public. So I'm curious. For you personally, how does it feel now that after all this time, these details are accounted for in a federal report?MATA-RUBIO: It's hard to read. But, I mean, it's necessary. And everybody needs to be looking at this report, reading it in detail and following recommendations.SUMMERS: I want to ask you - it's been some months since we last spoke. This day has to be excruciating. How are you and your family doing?MATA-RUBIO: Supporting each other. You know, the kids - they were at school, and it's business as usual. And I tell my older ones not to read the news when I know something's coming out to protect them. You know, you have to go and hear all of this information and to do, you know, media. And then my kids get home from school, and we're going to rush to Bandera to go see my daughter play basketball. And I have to be present for them.SUMMERS: Yeah. When you and I last spoke, you were running for mayor of Uvalde. And when we talked, you told me then that people in your community that you were talking to - as you were knocking on doors, they wanted to move forward. And you also told me that you felt that people needed to heal. Today, do you think that this accounting of what happened at Robb Elementary school - do you think having this all laid out in this manner helps Uvalde move forward to the kind of healing that you talked about?MATA-RUBIO: I think it's a step in the right direction. I think it is some answers that we've had questions to. But ultimately, the steps afterward and what our local officials do with this information is going to dictate where we go from here.SUMMERS: Kimberly Mata-Rubio, thank you so much for talking with us today.MATA-RUBIO: Thank you.(SOUNDBITE OF STORMZY SONG, "FIRE + WATER") JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: And now we turn to Kimberly Mata-Rubio. Her 10-year-old daughter, Lexi, was one of the 19 students killed at Robb Elementary School that day. We've spoken with Kimberly a number of times on this program in the months since the shooting about her daughter and what her family has been going through. Kimberly, it's good to talk with you again. KIMBERLY MATA-RUBIO: Thank you for having me. SUMMERS: I mean, I have to imagine that today is a hard day on top of hard days for you, your husband, Felix, and your kids. And I know that you were at today's Justice Department briefing. What went through your mind as you heard the details of all the failures that happened that day? MATA-RUBIO: I think we as the families, since the body camera footage was released, have known that there was a massive failure on May 24, 2022. But hearing the U.S. Attorney General say this, now the world knows, too. And no one can hide from it. SUMMERS: This is an extensive report, more than 500 pages all said. So I understand that you, the other families, have not had a chance to read or digest the entire thing. But in what you have seen, is there anything that is particularly meaningful to you? MATA-RUBIO: Some of the quotes by the officers and the instructions not to go into rooms 111, 112 were very hard to read. I was not aware that the crime scene was compromised. That was something I was learning for the first time. And I hope to get a chance to read the report in its entirety in the next few days. So I want to know more about that. SUMMERS: One thing that we heard from some other parents today was that while the names of some of the law enforcement officers who failed to act that day were published in this report, others were not. Why is that important - naming those law enforcement officers? MATA-RUBIO: I think it's important because the community needs to be familiar with who was at fault so they can make decisions themselves and so that we can have accountability. Also, my daughter is listed in this report. She's listed because she was murdered in her fourth grade classroom. She lost the right to privacy. Why do they have the right to privacy? SUMMERS: As you mentioned, Attorney General Merrick Garland is there in Uvalde, and we heard him earlier describing this law enforcement response as a failure. He also spoke to families. What did he say to you and the other families? MATA-RUBIO: He greeted us each personally before the start of the briefing on Wednesday night. For me, he came up, and he saw that I was wearing my Saint Mary's sweater. And he said that he noticed that Lexi had her T-shirt on in her mural, and we discussed her scholarship and her aspirations to be a lawyer one day. He was very emotional when he addressed us as a group. And I really appreciate him coming down and saying what this community needed to hear. Law enforcement response was a failure. SUMMERS: Was there anything that you wish that Garland or other Justice Department officials there in Uvalde had said today that they did not say? MATA-RUBIO: No. I also appreciated that he spoke on, even though it's not listed in the report, the failure by the federal government to have gun legislation in place. That's how we got here. That's how we continue to have these incidents occur. SUMMERS: I mean, we have conversations, unfortunately, like this in the wake of shootings all across this country - in movie theaters and schools and towns big and small. What do you hope will happen next now that all of these details have been made public in this extensive report from the Justice Department? MATA-RUBIO: I hope at the local level that there is accountability for the individuals who are at fault. I hope the DA pushes forward for criminal prosecutions. But I also hope that this serves as a reminder to other communities and law enforcement agencies that this can happen to them and that they should prepare. And even more than that, I hope that Americans wake up and realize that we don't have to live this way and that we should be taking a more proactive response. SUMMERS: Many of the details of the faulty police response described by Attorney General Garland as a failure - they've already been made public. So I'm curious. For you personally, how does it feel now that after all this time, these details are accounted for in a federal report? MATA-RUBIO: It's hard to read. But, I mean, it's necessary. And everybody needs to be looking at this report, reading it in detail and following recommendations. SUMMERS: I want to ask you - it's been some months since we last spoke. This day has to be excruciating. How are you and your family doing? MATA-RUBIO: Supporting each other. You know, the kids - they were at school, and it's business as usual. And I tell my older ones not to read the news when I know something's coming out to protect them. You know, you have to go and hear all of this information and to do, you know, media. And then my kids get home from school, and we're going to rush to Bandera to go see my daughter play basketball. And I have to be present for them. SUMMERS: Yeah. When you and I last spoke, you were running for mayor of Uvalde. And when we talked, you told me then that people in your community that you were talking to - as you were knocking on doors, they wanted to move forward. And you also told me that you felt that people needed to heal. Today, do you think that this accounting of what happened at Robb Elementary school - do you think having this all laid out in this manner helps Uvalde move forward to the kind of healing that you talked about? MATA-RUBIO: I think it's a step in the right direction. I think it is some answers that we've had questions to. But ultimately, the steps afterward and what our local officials do with this information is going to dictate where we go from here. SUMMERS: Kimberly Mata-Rubio, thank you so much for talking with us today. MATA-RUBIO: Thank you. (SOUNDBITE OF STORMZY SONG, "FIRE + WATER") Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Steve Mistler ,  Fatma Tanis Historically, efforts to tighten gun laws in Maine have been ignored by lawmakers. But after a mass shooting last year left 18 people dead, activists say renewed calls for reform now have greater traction. ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Gun safety activists have not had much luck in the Maine legislature. Lawmakers there have crafted some of the most permissive gun laws in the country. But last year, Maine saw the deadliest mass shooting in the state's history, and advocates for stricter gun laws now say their numbers are growing. Steve Mistler from Maine Public has the story.STEVE MISTLER, BYLINE: Tragedy recently brought Arthur Bernard to Maine's gun safety movement, yet he already knows his cause might outlast him.ARTHUR BERNARD: But I know that I would probably spend the rest of my life trying to find the right people who are going to do the right thing.MISTLER: Bernard's son, Arthur Strout, was one of the 18 people killed in Lewiston when a gunman opened fire at a restaurant and bowling alley in October. Strout's likeness is emblazoned on the sweatshirt his father wore as he spoke to a jam-packed crowd of activists at the Maine statehouse.BERNARD: This is about finding the right politicians who are willing to do the right thing more than they're afraid of losing their jobs.MISTLER: In the past, calls to tighten gun laws have been ignored by Maine lawmakers, who have historically given deference to the Second Amendment in a state rich in hunting tradition and gun ownership. And the yawning divide in the gun debate was in full view as Bernard spoke. Gun right activists took positions in the rally so that their message was captured by the cameras. Making good people helpless will not make bad people harmless, one gun rights sign said. Here's Laura Whitcomb, president of Gun Owners of Maine.LAURA WHITCOMB: All of the things that they're proposing will only take firearms out of the hands of the law-abiding.MISTLER: The Gun Owners of Maine's policies are not widely embraced by lawmakers, but it was previously successful in its push to make it easier to carry concealed weapons. That change is part of a trend in Maine. Thirty-five years ago, voters removed a phrase from the state constitution to make sure gun ownership is an individual right, not just for the common defense. And just seven years ago, they narrowly defeated a referendum to expand background checks. Traditional gun control issues have sputtered, even though Democrats currently control the statehouse and the governor's office. But House Democratic leader Representative Maureen Terry says the Lewiston massacre has prompted more urgent calls for reform.MAUREEN TERRY: You know, it's unfortunate that something terrible has had to have happened in order for us to move the needle at all, but I do think that the window is here.MISTLER: Terry would not get into specifics, but one proposal could center on overhauling Maine's so-called yellow flag law so that it's easier to confiscate a person's guns if a judge finds that there are harm to others or themselves. David Trahan played a key role in writing Maine's existing law. He leads the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, a group that assigns grade ratings to politicians that are highly coveted - or, in some cases, feared - by both parties. Since the Lewiston shooting, Trahan has argued Maine's existing yellow flag law wasn't used to take the gunman's weapons, despite repeated warnings about his mental health.DAVID TRAHAN: He never should have had a gun to conduct this. That's the place where our system failed, and that's where our organization will put our very significant influence in the coming months.MISTLER: Meanwhile, Alisa Conroy Morton, a leader for Maine Moms Demand Action, says the recent show of force by activists is meant to reassure old legislative allies and embolden new onesALISA CONROY MORTON: So that their legislators know that they have the support and the drive from the community asking for meaningful change.MISTLER: But in Maine, getting the meaningful change they're looking for will require a big shift in a long-standing political dynamic. For NPR News, I'm Steve Mistler in Augusta, Maine.(SOUNDBITE OF AKON SONG, "CRACK ROCK") ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Gun safety activists have not had much luck in the Maine legislature. Lawmakers there have crafted some of the most permissive gun laws in the country. But last year, Maine saw the deadliest mass shooting in the state's history, and advocates for stricter gun laws now say their numbers are growing. Steve Mistler from Maine Public has the story. STEVE MISTLER, BYLINE: Tragedy recently brought Arthur Bernard to Maine's gun safety movement, yet he already knows his cause might outlast him. ARTHUR BERNARD: But I know that I would probably spend the rest of my life trying to find the right people who are going to do the right thing. MISTLER: Bernard's son, Arthur Strout, was one of the 18 people killed in Lewiston when a gunman opened fire at a restaurant and bowling alley in October. Strout's likeness is emblazoned on the sweatshirt his father wore as he spoke to a jam-packed crowd of activists at the Maine statehouse. BERNARD: This is about finding the right politicians who are willing to do the right thing more than they're afraid of losing their jobs. MISTLER: In the past, calls to tighten gun laws have been ignored by Maine lawmakers, who have historically given deference to the Second Amendment in a state rich in hunting tradition and gun ownership. And the yawning divide in the gun debate was in full view as Bernard spoke. Gun right activists took positions in the rally so that their message was captured by the cameras. Making good people helpless will not make bad people harmless, one gun rights sign said. Here's Laura Whitcomb, president of Gun Owners of Maine. LAURA WHITCOMB: All of the things that they're proposing will only take firearms out of the hands of the law-abiding. MISTLER: The Gun Owners of Maine's policies are not widely embraced by lawmakers, but it was previously successful in its push to make it easier to carry concealed weapons. That change is part of a trend in Maine. Thirty-five years ago, voters removed a phrase from the state constitution to make sure gun ownership is an individual right, not just for the common defense. And just seven years ago, they narrowly defeated a referendum to expand background checks. Traditional gun control issues have sputtered, even though Democrats currently control the statehouse and the governor's office. But House Democratic leader Representative Maureen Terry says the Lewiston massacre has prompted more urgent calls for reform. MAUREEN TERRY: You know, it's unfortunate that something terrible has had to have happened in order for us to move the needle at all, but I do think that the window is here. MISTLER: Terry would not get into specifics, but one proposal could center on overhauling Maine's so-called yellow flag law so that it's easier to confiscate a person's guns if a judge finds that there are harm to others or themselves. David Trahan played a key role in writing Maine's existing law. He leads the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, a group that assigns grade ratings to politicians that are highly coveted - or, in some cases, feared - by both parties. Since the Lewiston shooting, Trahan has argued Maine's existing yellow flag law wasn't used to take the gunman's weapons, despite repeated warnings about his mental health. DAVID TRAHAN: He never should have had a gun to conduct this. That's the place where our system failed, and that's where our organization will put our very significant influence in the coming months. MISTLER: Meanwhile, Alisa Conroy Morton, a leader for Maine Moms Demand Action, says the recent show of force by activists is meant to reassure old legislative allies and embolden new ones ALISA CONROY MORTON: So that their legislators know that they have the support and the drive from the community asking for meaningful change. MISTLER: But in Maine, getting the meaningful change they're looking for will require a big shift in a long-standing political dynamic. For NPR News, I'm Steve Mistler in Augusta, Maine. (SOUNDBITE OF AKON SONG, "CRACK ROCK") Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Ryan Lucas A memorial is seen surrounding the Robb Elementary School sign following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 26, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas. Brandon Bell/Getty Images hide caption A memorial is seen surrounding the Robb Elementary School sign following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 26, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas. A U.S. Justice Department report released Thursday on the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, found "cascading failures" by law enforcement before, during, and after the attack that killed 19 children and two teachers. The new report provides the most thorough accounting yet of the events of May 24, 2022, when the gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary in Uvalde in one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history. The report documents "cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy and training" that all contributed to the failed law enforcement response that saw police officers wait more than 70 minutes in the school hallways before confronting and killing the gunman. "The victims and survivors of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School deserved better," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement accompanying the report. The law enforcement response at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022 — and the response by officials in the hours and days after — was a failure." The new report from the Justice Department, which runs more than 500 pages, provides a damning look at the law enforcement response to the shooting and the mistakes and missteps that had tragic consequences. "The most significant failure was that responding officers should have immediately recognized the incident as an active shooter situation, using the resources and equipment that were sufficient to push forward immediately and continuously toward the threat until entry was made into classrooms 111/112 and the threat was eliminated," the report says. The goal of the review, the department says, is to provide an independent account of the law enforcement response to the shooting; to identify lessons learned to help prepare for future such incidents; and to provide a roadmap for community safety and engagement before, during and after such events. The report found that police arrived at the school and entered the building three minutes after the gunman, who was still actively shooting inside classrooms 111 and 112 at the time. Those officers quickly identified the location of the gunfire and ran toward those rooms—consistent, the report says, with the practice of quickly engaging an active shooter. The police approached the rooms where the shooter was, but retreated after some of the officers were hit with shrapnel from the shooter's gunfire. From that point on, the report says, the police, including Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Department chief Pete Arredondo, began treating the incident as a "barricaded subject scenario and not as an active shooter situation." That was a critical mistake that contributed to the tragedy. "Despite their training and despite multiple events that indicated the subject continued to pose an active threat to students and staff in the building, including the likelihood and then confirmation of victims inside the room, officers on scene did not attempt to enter the room and stop the shooter for over an hour after they entered the building," the report says. Instead, Chief Arredondo turned his attention to evacuating children and teachers in the building "to preserve and protect the lives of kids and teachers in the hot zone," the report says. "This was a major contributing factor in the delay to making entry into rooms 111/112," according to the report. "The time it took to evacuate the entire building was 43 minutes." Arredondo is singled out in the report at several points. It concludes that he was the de facto incident commander on the day, but that "he did not provide appropriate leadership, command, and control, including to establishing an incident command structure nor directing entry into classrooms 111 and 112." That contributed to what the report says was an absence of leadership in the police response. "Leadership in law enforcement is absolutely critical, especially in moments of a dire challenge, such as the active shooter incident at Robb Elementary School," the report says. "This leadership was absent for too long in the Robb Elementary School law enforcement response." That does not fall solely on Chief Arredondo, according to the report. It says that leadership from the Uvalde Police Department, the school district police department, the Uvalde County Sheriff's Office, and the Texas Department of Public Safety "demonstrated no urgency for establishing a command and control structure." That had several knock-on effects, including challenges sharing information, and "limited-to-no direction fore personnel in the hallway or on the perimeter." The report is also sharply critical of how the authorities handled the aftermath of the shooting, particularly in how they communicated with the public. In this instance, the report found that bad information and inconsistent messaging created confusion that compounded the suffering of those affected by the shooting, both on the day itself and later. "The extent of misinformation, misguided and misleading narratives, leaks , and lack of communication about what happened on May 24 is unprecedented and has had an extensive, negative impact on the mental health and recovery of the family members and other victims, as well as the entire community of Uvalde," the report says. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Jonathan Franklin Copies of the 911 calls placed by 11-year-old Aderrien Murry and his grandmother to the Indianola Police Department were released Friday. The calls raise questions about the May 20, 2023, incident and how the situation was handled by authorities. Here, an image from the body camera footage shows the moment Sgt. Greg Capers fired his weapon at Aderrien. Mississippi Bureau of Investigation hide caption Copies of the 911 calls placed by 11-year-old Aderrien Murry and his grandmother to the Indianola Police Department were released Friday. The calls raise questions about the May 20, 2023, incident and how the situation was handled by authorities. Here, an image from the body camera footage shows the moment Sgt. Greg Capers fired his weapon at Aderrien. A Mississippi 911 dispatcher was told that a man allegedly trying to enter a home last May was unarmed and that there were children inside the residence — where one officer shot and wounded 11-year-old Aderrien Murry, who had called police for help. Carlos Moore, the attorney representing the Murry family, says the recordings he released on Friday "directly contradict the initial police account and raise serious questions about the handling of the situation that led to the tragic shooting." "This crucial information should have been known to the responding officers and should have informed their approach to the situation," Moore said in a statement. Moore released the five minutes of audio recordings to reporters after the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation originally declined to do so. Earlier this week, body camera footage from the incident was also released and obtained by NPR. Neither the Indianola Police Department nor the dispatcher, Jada Rush, responded to NPR's requests for comment following the release of the body camera footage and the recording of the 911 call placed by Aderrien. Last month, a grand jury in Mississippi determined that there was no criminal conduct by the officer, Sgt. Greg Capers, and no further action or charges will be taken against him. On May 20, Aderrien called 911 at the request of his mother, Nakala Murry, to ask for help after a still-unidentified man arrived at their house. A 911 dispatcher, Jada Rush, received his call, confirmed his address and then sent police officers to the house. On one of the tapes, Rush can be heard calling Aderrien back to notify him about the officers' arrival. Aderrien said the man wasn't allowing his family to go outside. Aderrien also confirmed to the dispatcher that the unidentified man involved in the domestic dispute with his mother had no weapons. "OK, [officers] are asking if they have your permission to kick the door in?" Rush then said. "Yes," Aderrien said. For several seconds during the call as officers began to enter the home, the audio went silent — except for Aderrien's breathing, while he stayed on the phone with 911. In the background of the call, Sgt. Greg Capers, one of the officers responding to the incident, is heard saying, "Come out, sir — don't make us come in." (This portion of audio matches what is seen and heard in the body camera footage released by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.) "Police! If you got any weapons, you better put them down," Capers says. Around five seconds after Capers asked the question, he opened fire, shooting the 11-year-old in the chest, the body camera footage shows. The conversation between officers and those in the home is faintly heard in the background as the 911 dispatcher was still on the line with Aderrien. Another recording contains a 911 call from Aderrien's grandmother, telling Rush to send police to the Murry's home after Aderrien called her. Rush confirmed this in her statements to the MBI. The recordings provide more clarity into what happened the night of May 20 — particularly since Rush's accounting of the events seems to have changed. In documents from an interview with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation dated May 20, 2023, Rush told investigators that she had been on the phone with the 11-year-old. Photos of two handwritten statements signed by Rush in the MBI files obtained by NPR show that Rush revised her statement. In the first statement dated May 20, she said Nakala Murry called in the domestic dispute, and not Aderrien or his grandmother. But a second, revised statement, dated May 25, did not name Nakala Murry as the caller. It is still unclear whether Rush asked the callers whether there were children present at the home. Aderrien survived the shooting. He suffered a collapsed lung, a fractured rib and a lacerated liver from the incident. Aderrien's mother, Nakala Murry, told NPR prior to the release of both the bodycam footage and the 911 audio recording that the shooting could have been avoided. "Things need to change. People need to show more accountability. Laws need to be [changed]," Murry said. Capers has since returned to work with the Indianola Police Department. In May, the Murry family filed a $5 million federal lawsuit, saying that the police officers who responded to the incident acted in a way that was "so outrageous that it shocks the moral and legal conscience of the community." The lawsuit filed by Carlos Moore, the family's attorney, accuses the police of violating Aderrien Murry's civil rights — specifically the Fourth Amendment's protection against the use of excessive force and the 14th Amendment's guarantee of due process. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  The Associated Press Vehicles are seen in a parking lot outside of Perry High School in Iowa the day after a shooting on Jan. 4, 2024. Dan Marburger, the school's principal who put himself in harm's way to protect students during the shooting, died Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024, a funeral home confirmed after Marburger's after the family announced it on a GoFundMe page. Charlie Neibergall/AP hide caption Vehicles are seen in a parking lot outside of Perry High School in Iowa the day after a shooting on Jan. 4, 2024. Dan Marburger, the school's principal who put himself in harm's way to protect students during the shooting, died Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024, a funeral home confirmed after Marburger's after the family announced it on a GoFundMe page. DES MOINES, Iowa — An Iowa principal who put himself in harm's way to protect students during a school shooting earlier this month died Sunday, a funeral home confirmed. Caldwell Parrish Funeral Home & Crematory confirmed the death of Perry High School Principal Dan Marburger after the family announced it on a GoFundMe page. Marburger was critically injured during the Jan. 4 attack, which began in the school's cafeteria as students were gathering for breakfast before class. An 11-year-old middle school student was killed in the shooting, and six other people were injured. The 17-year-old student who opened fire also died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot. The day after the shooting, the state Department of Public Safety said Marburger "acted selflessly and placed himself in harm's way in an apparent effort to protect his students." News of Marburger's death was first posted on a GoFundMe page for his family. The post, by Marburger's wife, Elizabeth, said he died at about 8 a.m. Sunday, and said: "Dan lost his battle. He fought hard and gave us 10 days that we will treasure forever." The news that Marburger died triggered a flood of support on the Perry Facebook page with nearly 200 people posting condolences within the first hour after it was posted. In a Facebook post on the night of the shooting, the principal's daughter, Claire Marburger, called her father a "gentle giant" and said it wasn't surprising that her father tried to protect his students. "As I heard of a gunman, I instantly had a feeling my Dad would be a victim as he would put himself in harms way for the benefit of the kids and his staff," his daughter wrote. "That's just Dad." Marburger had been principal since 1995. Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation spokesman Mitch Mortvedt said after the shooting that Marburger did some "pretty significant things" to protect others, but didn't release details. Perry Superintendent Clark Wicks said Marburger was a "hero" who intervened with the teenage gunman so students could escape. An 11-year-old sixth grader, Ahmir Jolliff, was killed in the shooting. Authorities said he was shot three times. The shooting happened just after 7:30 a.m. on Jan. 4, shortly before classes were set to begin on the first day back after winter break. Mortvedt said the shooting started in the cafeteria, where students from several grades were eating breakfast, then spilled outside the cafeteria but was contained to the north end of the school. Authorities said the suspect, identified as Dylan Butler, had a pump-action shotgun and a small-caliber handgun. Mortvedt told The Associated Press that authorities also found a "pretty rudimentary" improvised explosive device in Butler's belongings, and that experts advised "it was something that they needed to disarm." It was rendered safe. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Ryan Lucas Police secure an area around a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket where 10 people were killed in a shooting on May 14, 2022. Derek Gee/The Buffalo News via AP, File hide caption Police secure an area around a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket where 10 people were killed in a shooting on May 14, 2022. The Justice Department says it will seek the death penalty for the white gunman who killed 10 African Americans in 2022 at grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., in a racially motivated massacre. In a new court filing submitted Friday, federal prosecutors say that the circumstances of the crimes "are such that, in the event of a conviction, a sentence of death is justified." This marks the first time that the Justice Department under the Biden administration has sought the death penalty in a new case. The gunman, Payton Gendron, pleaded guilty in New York state court last year to the May 2022 killings at the Tops supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo. He was sentenced in November in the state case to life without parole. But Gendron still faces a federal prosecution on 27 counts of hate crimes and gun charges. In the new filing in federal court in Buffalo, prosecutors say there are several factors that justify a death sentence, including that the killings were intentional, required substantial planning and premeditation and were racially motivated. They say, for example, that he selected the Tops Friendly Market "in order to maximize the number of Black victims." They also say Gendron attempted to incite violence action by others. President Biden campaigned in 2020 on ending capital punishment, but has done little to make that happen, sparking criticism from opponents of the death penalty. Shortly after Attorney General Merrick Garland took charge at the Justice Department in 2021, he announced a moratorium on federal executions, pending a review of the department's policies. The Buffalo case marks the first time that Garland has authorized prosecutors to pursue the death penalty in a new case. He has permitted prosecutors to move forward with two capital prosecutions that were authorized during the Trump administration. The first was against Sayfullo Saipov, who was convicted of deliberately ramming his truck into a bike path in Manhattan, killing eight people. He was sentenced to life in prison after the jury failed to reach agreement on the death penalty. In the other, prosecutors sought the death penalty for the shooter who killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. The jury in that case recommended a sentence of death. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  The Associated Press A police officer gives an order to the public Oct. 27 during a manhunt for Robert Card at a farm in Lisbon, Maine, following two mass shootings in nearby Lewiston. Despite the warning by Card's friend and fellow Army reservist Sean Hodgson, Army officials ultimately did not stop Card from committing Maine's deadliest mass shooting. Robert F. Bukaty/AP hide caption A police officer gives an order to the public Oct. 27 during a manhunt for Robert Card at a farm in Lisbon, Maine, following two mass shootings in nearby Lewiston. Despite the warning by Card's friend and fellow Army reservist Sean Hodgson, Army officials ultimately did not stop Card from committing Maine's deadliest mass shooting. Sean Hodgson watched and worried as his best friend of nearly two decades unraveled. His former roommate and fellow U.S. Army reservist's anger and paranoia were mounting, he had access to guns, and he refused to get help. So Hodgson did the hardest thing of his life: He sent a text about Robert Card to their Army supervisor. "I believe he's going to snap and do a mass shooting," he wrote on Sept. 15. Six weeks later, Card fatally shot 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston before killing himself. His body was found in a trailer after a two-day search and regionwide lockdown. "I wasn't in his head. I don't know exactly what went on," Hodgson told The Associated Press last week in an exclusive interview, his first since the Oct. 25 shootings. "But I do know I was right." The series of warning signs about Card have been well documented. In May, relatives warned police that Card had grown paranoid, and they expressed concern about his access to guns. In July, Card was hospitalized in a psychiatric unit for two weeks after shoving a fellow reservist and locking himself in a motel room. In August, the Army barred him from handling weapons while on duty and declared him nondeployable. And in September, Hodgson raised the most glaring red flag, telling authorities to change the passcode to the gate at their Army Reserve training facility and arm themselves if Card showed up. "Please," he wrote. "I believe he's messed up in the head." But authorities declined to confront Card — the clearest example of the missed opportunities to intervene and prevent the deadliest shooting in state history. That's hard to swallow for Hodgson, who's pushing back against an independent report for law enforcement that described him as "over the top" and "alarmist." "I did my job, and I went over and beyond it, and I literally spelled it out for them," said Hodgson, 43, referred to by only his last name in documents related to the case. "I don't know how clear I could have gotten." Hodgson's account, taken together with law enforcement documents, videos and other interviews, provides the most comprehensive picture to date of potential missteps leading up to the attack. In replying to AP's questions about the investigation and Hodgson's warning, the Army Reserve said in a statement this week that no one should jump to conclusions until its own investigation and an independent probe by the Army inspector general are finalized. "Any speculation at this point without having all the details could affect the outcome of the investigation. More details may become available once the investigation is complete," Lt. Col. Addie Leonhardt, Army Reserve spokesperson, said in the statement. Officials wouldn't comment further. Sheriff Joel Merry — of Sagadahoc County, where Card lived — didn't respond to AP's questions about whether Hodgson's warning was taken seriously enough but suggested a need for public policy changes. He previously said his office has been "fully transparent" and is cooperating with an independent commission appointed by the governor. Hodgson said he doesn't know where the failings occurred but believes more could have been done to help his friend and prevent tragedy. "I understand he did a horrific thing. I don't agree with it. But I loved him," he said. " I didn't want any of this for anybody." A close and supportive friendship For much of their friendship, Card was "the sensible one," Hodgson said. They met in 2006 in the Army Reserve and became especially close when they both divorced around the same time. When Hodgson was evicted from his New Hampshire apartment in 2022, Card told him to move to Maine, and they lived together for about a month, he said. When Card was hospitalized in New York in July, Hodgson was the one who drove him back to Maine. By then, Hodgson said, Card had begun venting to him about his belief that those around him were accusing him of being a pedophile. Hodgson believed some of Card's complaints were true — a case of mistaken identity stemming from the fact that another Robert Card is on the state's sex offender registry — and described an incident at the bowling alley when a father snatched his daughter away from Card after he offered the toddler a hello. "I always believed him. I always stuck by him," Hodgson said. "I am the closest one to Robert Card. Besides his mother, he pushed everybody away. "I was the last one he pushed away." In September, after a night out at the Oxford Casino, Card began "flipping out," Hodgson said — pounding the steering wheel and almost crashing multiple times. After Hodgson begged him to pull over, he said, Card punched him in the face. "We were having a good night, and he just snapped," he said. Hodgson told Card to drop him off at a gas station near his house. "I love you, and I'll always be here for you no matter what," he said he told his friend as he got out of the car. In this cellphone text screenshot provided by Sean Hodgson, Hodgson shares his concerns about the condition of his friend and fellow Army reservist Robert Card with his Army supervisor. "I believe he's going to snap and do a mass shooting," Hodgson texted to his superior. He was right. Sean Hodgson via AP hide caption In this cellphone text screenshot provided by Sean Hodgson, Hodgson shares his concerns about the condition of his friend and fellow Army reservist Robert Card with his Army supervisor. "I believe he's going to snap and do a mass shooting," Hodgson texted to his superior. He was right. Hodgson sent his text two days later, telling his training supervisor he feared what Card might do. He didn't speak to Card after that, he said, though they passed each other at work. "It took me a lot to report somebody I love," he said. "But when the hair starts standing up on the back of your neck, you have to listen." After his text, Hodgson said, military officials followed up, asking whether Card threatened specific people. He told them he hadn't. But they didn't ask for help in approaching Card, he said, even though they drove trucks for the same company and he knew his friend's schedule and route. "I could've told them when he was at work, when he was at home, what hours he worked," he said. Authorities briefly staked out the Army Reserve Center and visited Card's home. They declined to confront him, fearing that would "throw a stick of dynamite on a pool of gas," according to video released last month by the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office. In the videos, officials downplayed Hodgson's warning, suggesting he might have been drunk when he texted at 2:04 a.m. Speaking to police at the training center, Army Reserve Capt. Jeremy Reamer describes Hodgson as "not the most credible of our soldiers" and later tells Sagadahoc Sheriff Sgt. Aaron Skolfield his message should be taken "with a grain of salt." 'All they had to do is listen' Hodgson, who was unaware of those comments until contacted by AP, acknowledged in a series of interviews that he struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and alcohol addiction but said he wasn't drinking that night and was awake because he works nights and was waiting for his boss to call. Hodgson also acknowledges that he faces two criminal charges, one alleging he assaulted a woman he was dating in 2022 and another alleging that he violated his bail conditions by possessing alcohol last month. He's also in hot water for wrecking a military vehicle last summer, he said. But he said authorities should have taken him more seriously given his relationship with Card, his past training on threat detection and mitigation, and his previous work as a security officer at a nuclear plant. "That was the most difficult thing I ever had to do, was report him to command, and I did that. And for them to discredit me?" he said. "It pisses me off because all they had to do is listen." In a text message this week, Reamer declined to comment on questions from AP and referred them to Army Reserve public affairs officers. Pictures of two of the victims of the October 2023 mass shooting by Army reservist Robert Card are seen Dec. 5 at a makeshift memorial in Lewiston, Maine. Robert F. Bukaty/AP hide caption Pictures of two of the victims of the October 2023 mass shooting by Army reservist Robert Card are seen Dec. 5 at a makeshift memorial in Lewiston, Maine. According to the independent review for the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office, officers didn't have sufficient grounds the day they staked out Card's house to force the issue and take him into protective custody after he refused to answer the door. That step is necessary to trigger Maine's "yellow flag" law. It allows a judge to temporarily remove someone's guns during a psychiatric health crisis. But Stephanie Sherman, an attorney who's represented several families of survivors of the 2022 mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, said police had more than enough information to take to a local judge. The videos show officers with a disturbingly casual approach to the threat Card posed, Sherman said. She also noted that Skolfield referred to the Cards as a "big family in this area" and said he didn't want to publicize over police radio that officers were visiting the home. "It was sort of balancing the safety of the public versus this family's reputation," she said. "And that should not be a factor." Watching the videos was gut-wrenching for Tammy Asselin, who became separated from her 10-year-old daughter during the chaos of the bowling alley shooting. She said it was the first time she knew for sure that steps could have been taken to prevent the massacre. "Listening to that interaction between the military and the sheriff, it hurt me to hear the giggle and the laughter in their voice," Asselin said, a tear running down her cheek. "Because I don't think they would be giggling and laughing had they been the ones in my shoes that day, not knowing where their daughter was." He knew it was Card and where he would go For weeks after sending the text about Card to their supervisor, Hodgson said he prayed that it wouldn't come true. But as soon as he heard about the shooting, he called his sergeant. "I don't believe in coincidences," he said he told him. "I know it's Robert Card." Hodgson was driving to Massachusetts for work that day. He fielded phone calls to and from multiple law enforcement agencies that didn't seem to be communicating with one another, he said. He said he told authorities right away that Card likely was headed to the Maine Recycling Corp. Card had worked there, and it wasn't far from the boat launch where his car was found after the shootings. His body would eventually be found there, after initial unsuccessful searches that critics said were too cautious. More than two months later, Hodgson said, he hates that Card "took the easy way out" and isn't around to answer questions or face the consequences of what he did. It's not the Robert Card he knew and loved for 17 years, he said, and he struggles with that every day. Hodgson said he wants people to know he did everything he could to save lives. "I don't know how to express to people how much I loved him, how much I cared about him," he said. "And how much I hate what he did." Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Jonathan Franklin ,  Jaclyn Diaz Body camera footage shows the moments leading up to Indianola, Miss., police officer Greg Capers shooting and wounding 11-year-old Aderrien Murry following a call the boy made to authorities for help. Mississippi Bureau of Investigation hide caption Body camera footage shows the moments leading up to Indianola, Miss., police officer Greg Capers shooting and wounding 11-year-old Aderrien Murry following a call the boy made to authorities for help. Body camera video released by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation shows the moment an 11-year-old boy was shot and wounded by a police officer last May in his home after calling authorities for help. Officials in Mississippi made the footage available this week after calls for its release from Aderrien Murry's mother, Nakala Murry, and the family's attorney. Last month, a grand jury in Mississippi determined that there was no criminal conduct by the officer, Sgt. Greg Capers, and that no further action or charges will be taken against him. In the video obtained by NPR, Capers is shown repeatedly banging on the Murry family's front door until the dispatcher on the other end gives Capers permission to "kick it in." Later, Capers is shown in the frame attempting to kick in the door but struggling to do so — and he is heard telling the dispatcher, "It ain't that easy." After the door is opened, Capers is heard shouting, "Let me see your hands" repeatedly while Nakala Murry stands at the front door with her hands up. "Where's he at? Where's he at?" Capers says to Murry, as she gestures inside the home with her head. Capers asks Aderrien Murry's mother to come out of the home, as he continues to shout for a man who was reported to be causing the disturbance. "Does he have any weapons? Come out, sir — don't make us come in," Capers says. "Police! If you got any weapons, you better put them down," Capers warns as he begins to enter the Murry family's empty living room. At that moment, Aderrien Murry is seen walking into the frame with his hands over his head. Capers immediately opens fire, shooting the 11-year-old in the chest. "Oh, my God!" Capers shouts as Aderrien begins to scream in pain. Capers begins to call for an ambulance, as Aderrien runs outside yelling for his mother. "Med-stat, we need it now!" Capers yells to dispatch on his radio. Aderrien survived the shooting but suffered a collapsed lung, a fractured rib and a lacerated liver. In May 2023, his family filed a $5 million federal lawsuit that argues the police officers who responded to the domestic disturbance call acted in a way that was "so outrageous that it shocks the moral and legal conscience of the community." The Indianola Police Department did not respond to NPR's request for comment regarding the release of the body camera footage. "The release of this video allows the world to independently assess whether the actions of Greg Capers were justified when he shot unarmed 11-year-old Aderrien Murry in the chest," said Carlos Moore, the attorney representing the Murry family, in a statement. Aderrien's mother, Nakala Murry, told NPR prior to the release of the bodycam footage that the shooting could have been avoided, especially by a trained police officer. "Things need to change. People need to show more accountability. Laws need to be [changed]," Murry said. Body camera footage shows the moments leading up to Indianola, Miss., police officer Greg Capers shooting and wounding 11-year-old Aderrien Murry following a call the boy made to authorities for help. Mississippi Bureau of Investigation hide caption Body camera footage shows the moments leading up to Indianola, Miss., police officer Greg Capers shooting and wounding 11-year-old Aderrien Murry following a call the boy made to authorities for help. Police responses to 911 calls "can go terribly, terribly wrong," said David Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Many questions are left open in this case that the body camera footage doesn't answer, said Harris, who has researched police conduct. Police responded to the house with a level of deadly force that may not have been necessary, Harris said. It's unclear so far what information the officers were given ahead of arriving. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is not releasing copies of the 911 call placed by Aderrien Murry, telling NPR that Mississippi state law determines these types of records to be confidential. The MBI provided NPR files from its investigation into the shooting that include witness statements from the dispatcher, Jada Rush, and the officers, Capers and Officer Talejia Webb. On the day of the May 20, 2023, shooting, the two officers received word from Rush to arrive at the Murry home for a call of a domestic dispute. Police officers respond to potential domestic violence-related calls knowing that these are considered some of the most dangerous calls they could get summoned to, Harris said. "They're not wrong to wonder what they're facing. But it's terribly important to have as much information as possible" given to officers before they arrive at these homes, he said. The body camera footage, in this case, is not clear on what information police officers were given before arriving at the Murry family's home. What is known, based on previous NPR interviews and investigative files, is that Aderrien's mother, Nakala Murry, said she had her son call the police and his grandmother for help after a still-unidentified man arrived. Harris said the dispatcher, Rush, should have communicated that there were children on the scene and that one boy was the person calling for help. Based on the MBI investigative files, it is still unclear whether this was done. In an interview with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation dated May 20, 2023, Rush says that she told officers that she was on the phone with the 11-year-old. Rush also told investigators she received a second call from Aderrien Murry's grandmother once she dispatched the officers — saying they needed to make contact with Nakala Murry. In one of Capers' statements to investigators, he said that 911 dispatch received a call from the grandmother of Nakala Murry — not the young boy. He also said that the mother didn't tell officers when they arrived that there were children, including Aderrien and other kids, at home. The body camera footage doesn't indicate she shared that information with police in the tense moments leading up to the shooting. "And this is very significant because it should be noted — and I don't know if it was or it wasn't — but the dispatcher has that information that a child is calling. And that should be passed on to officers on the scene for safety's sake," Harris said. This case has echoes of the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014, Harris said. Tamir was shot by police after officers arrived at a Cleveland, Ohio, park where he was playing with a toy gun, and they shot him almost immediately upon arriving. Police, in that case, were not told by dispatch that the person calling 911 indicated that the gun was a toy and that Tamir was a juvenile. Webb told investigators that her body camera died before arriving to the home. But in her statement to investigators, she indicated that she called dispatch once she and Capers got to the front door. Capers' body camera footage shows officers asked Nakala Murry whether the man Aderrien was calling about was armed. It's unclear from the audio what her response was to that question. "And that would make a difference. Because if she says no, which I didn't hear, or if she says yes, you can imagine quite different scenarios. So those are sort of two things that stick out as unresolved," Harris said. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Estefania Mitre The Wahweap Marina, squeezed by the dropping and encroaching shoreline of Lake Powell on the Colorado River behind the Glen Canyon Dam outside Page, Ariz., on Feb. 20, 2023. The bathtub ring marking the once-high level of the lake is visible on the red rock formations in the distance. Full story here. Hart Van Denburg/CPR News hide caption The Wahweap Marina, squeezed by the dropping and encroaching shoreline of Lake Powell on the Colorado River behind the Glen Canyon Dam outside Page, Ariz., on Feb. 20, 2023. The bathtub ring marking the once-high level of the lake is visible on the red rock formations in the distance. Full story here. Each year, we recognize the work and importance of local journalism through the lenses of the member and affiliate NPR stations. Photographers have covered pivotal moments throughout the year; that's why we asked them to share memorable events they covered this past year. Reflecting on the photos... I'm struck by the recurring theme of large gatherings of people. Whether in joy, prayer, protest or grief, it seems 2023 was a year where the desire to be around others was particularly palpable. Martin do Nascimento Some of the events included the East Palestine train derailment, the leak of classified U.S. intelligence documents, Texas women challenging the state's abortion bans, the end of the nation's COVID-19 immigration emergency order, the controversy around Title 42, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling to end race-conscious admission programs at colleges and universities across the country and calls for a cease-fire in Gaza in several U.S. cities. From moments of joy for concertgoers with Beyoncé's return to the stage to grief in vigils for the deaf and hard of hearing victims of a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine. Migrants and asylum-seekers cross into the United States from Tijuana, Mexico, through the El Chaparral crossing, walking up its iconic white ramp on their way to make their asylum claim on May 12, 2023. Full story here. Matthew Bowler/KPBS hide caption Wood Street resident Mayana Sparks cries while watching the city of Oakland begin to evict an encampment on April 10, 2023. Full story here. Beth LaBerge/KQED hide caption An estimate of over 10,000 protestors rallying during the All Out For Palestine Rally held at the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023 in protest of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Patricia Lim/KUT hide caption An estimate of over 10,000 protestors rallying during the All Out For Palestine Rally held at the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023 in protest of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Sophia Lewis, 13, of Maryland Heights, Mo., helps hoist a giant rainbow flag down Market Street on June 25, 2023, during the St. Louis PrideFest Parade in downtown St. Louis. Brian Munoz/St. Louis Public Radio hide caption Kieyira Flintroy poses for a photo while waiting in line to see Beyoncé on her Seattle stop of the Renaissance World Tour on Sept. 14, 2023, at Seattle's Lumen Field. Full story here. Megan Farmer/KUOW hide caption The Mitotiliztli Yaoyollohtli Aztec dance company lines up for a march for Santos Rodriguez, a 12-year-old shot by a Dallas police officer in 1973, during a 50th anniversary commemoration on July 23, 2023, in downtown Dallas. Full story here. Yfat Yossifor/KERA hide caption Dulce De Leche performs on Columbus Avenue during the event San Francisco is a Drag, a series of outdoor performances on Dec. 2, 2023. Full story here. Beth LaBerge/KQED hide caption Surrounded by security, Aimee Kotek Wilson (left), and her wife, Gov. Tina Kotek, prepare to enter the inaugural proceedings at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem, Ore., on Jan. 9, 2022. Full story here. Kristyna Wentz-Graff/OPB hide caption From each corner of the country, these photographers have documented the events that have shaped the stories from their states and cities. "Through photos, I sought to convey the distinct tapestry of the place I call home, highlighting both the realities that demand attention and the aspects we cherish," said KQED's photojournalist Beth LaBerge. These images from across the country represent some of the year's most remarkable stories: Maura Healey waits to be escorted into the Massachusetts House of Representatives' chamber on Jan. 5, 2023, to be sworn in as the state's next governor. Full story here. Jesse Costa/WBUR hide caption Maura Healey waits to be escorted into the Massachusetts House of Representatives' chamber on Jan. 5, 2023, to be sworn in as the state's next governor. Full story here. Runners cross the starting line of the 127th Boston Marathon on April 17, 2023. Full story here. Robin Lubbock/WBUR hide caption Pallbearers carry the casket of Mel King out the doors of Boston's Union United Methodist Church after King's funeral service on April 11, 2023. Perhaps the city's most prominent modern Black organizer and politician, King died on March 28, at the age of 94. Full story here. Jesse Costa/WBUR hide caption Victor Ramirez and Gina Bennett, both of whom work at the Allen Premium Outlets in Allen, Texas, hug on May 8, 2023, at a memorial for the eight victims of a mass shooting. Full story here. Yfat Yossifor/KERA hide caption John Wade from Cleveland, Ohio, has a boost of confidence right before the start signal in the National Veterans Wheelchair Games at the Portland International Raceway on July 5, 2023. Full story here. Caden Perry/OPB hide caption East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway talks to reporters during a contentious community meeting on Feb. 15, 2023, about the fiery, toxic train derailment that occurred in the Ohio community earlier that month. Full story here. Ryan Loew/IPM hide caption Members of the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild of America picket the Amazon Studios in Culver City, Calif., on June 17, 2023. Full story here. Julie A Hotz for CalMatters hide caption Jatun Mashikiuna performs during a festival in downtown Hartford, Conn., where officials and the public joined members of the Ecuadorian community to raise their flag at the Capitol in observance of Ecuador's Independence Day on Aug. 10, 2023. Full story here. Ayannah Brown/Connecticut Public hide caption Michael Jones and others strike at the Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center in Oakland, Calif., on Oct. 4, 2023. Full story here. Martin do Nascimento/KQED hide caption Megan Rapinoe walks onto the field to play her final NWSL regular-season home game against the Washington Spirit on Oct. 6, 2023, at Seattle's Lumen Field. Full story here. Megan Farmer/KUOW hide caption For the first Literary Costume Ball at the Library of Congress, around 2,000 people dressed as their favorite characters and packed the Thomas Jefferson Building for the Sept. 14, 2023, event, which featured caricature artists, a DJ and a costume contest. Full story here. Tyrone Turner/DCist/WAMU hide caption At the "One Lewiston" Community Vigil, attendees sign "I love you" after four members of Maine's deaf community were killed in a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, on Oct. 29, 2023. Full story here. Raquel C. Zaldívar/New England News Collaborative hide caption Maya Murchison poses for a photo at Eastlake High School in Chula Vista, Calif., on Oct. 23, 2023. Murchison, a high school senior, said the Supreme Court's affirmative action ruling affected her college application process. Full story here. Adriana Heldiz/CalMatters hide caption Arturo, from Venezuela, is one of the many migrants who arrived in Denver from the southern border. He stays in a tent on Zuni Street, where migrants who had stayed in a city-contracted motel relocated after they had to leave the facility in November. Full story here. Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite hide caption A large crowd of people gathered in front of the White House for morning prayers on Nov. 13, 2023, the day of the March for Israel. Full story here. Tyrone Turner/DCist/WAMU hide caption People rally outside the Powell Street Station in downtown San Francisco to call for a cease-fire in Gaza as President Biden arrives for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference on Nov. 14, 2023. Full story here. Juliana Yamada/KQED hide caption People rally outside the Powell Street Station in downtown San Francisco to call for a cease-fire in Gaza as President Biden arrives for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference on Nov. 14, 2023. Full story here. Protesters demanding a cease-fire in Gaza block the westbound lanes of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on Nov. 16, 2023. Full story here. Beth LaBerge/KQED hide caption Tanya Talamante pauses in the icy water at Oakledge Park on Jan. 20, 2023, in Burlington, Vt. This is part of New England News Collaborative's first-person stories on how Latinos spending time outdoors can inspire deeper connections with others, their heritage and nature itself. Full story here. Raquel C. Zaldívar/New England News Collaborative hide caption Center for Reproductive Rights leaders leading the lawsuit aim to hold the state of Texas accountable for the consequnces of their multiple abortion bans on March 7, 2023. Patricia Lim/KUT hide caption Hollis Moore, a 30-year-old teacher in the Kirkwood School District in Kirkwood, Mo., hugs their student Maggie McCoy, 10, on April 17, 2023, before a school board meeting outside the North Kirkwood Middle School. Moore alleges they have been discriminated against by district officials due to their gender identity. Full story here. Brian Munoz/St. Louis Public Radio hide caption Hollis Moore, a 30-year-old teacher in the Kirkwood School District in Kirkwood, Mo., hugs their student Maggie McCoy, 10, on April 17, 2023, before a school board meeting outside the North Kirkwood Middle School. Moore alleges they have been discriminated against by district officials due to their gender identity. Full story here. Hadah McCoy says goodbye to two of her dogs on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023, outside City Hall in downtown St. Louis. As city employees cleared the encampment they'd been living in, McCoy and her husband learned the temporary housing the city had set up for them would only allow the couple to bring one of their pets. Tristen Rouse/St. Louis Public Radio hide caption Hadah McCoy says goodbye to two of her dogs on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023, outside City Hall in downtown St. Louis. As city employees cleared the encampment they'd been living in, McCoy and her husband learned the temporary housing the city had set up for them would only allow the couple to bring one of their pets.

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From By  Anthony Brooks Some families of the victims of the Lewiston, Maine mass shooting, which killed 18 people at a bar and bowling alley, now find themselves unexpectedly in the role of gun control activists. LEILA FADEL, HOST: Nearly two months after a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, families and their community are still looking for answers. The gunman opened fire in a bowling alley and a pool hall, and 18 people were killed. Thirteen were wounded. As Anthony Brooks of member station WBUR reports, some of the victims' relatives now find themselves unexpectedly in the role of gun control activists.ANTHONY BROOKS, BYLINE: Decorations are up, and holiday music plays in many of the stores along Lisbon Street in downtown Lewiston. There are also signs that read, Lewiston strong, reminders of the deep grief that remains here. Following the worst mass shooting in Maine's history, people like Arthur Bernard are suddenly activists, pushing for restrictions on the kind of weapon the shooter used to kill his son.ARTHUR BERNARD: There has to be some basic common sense here. And what does it take?BROOKS: Bernard was playing pool with his son Artie Strout at Schemengees Bar and Grill on the night of the shooting. Arthur headed home early, while his son stayed on at the bar.BERNARD: I says, all right, kid. I says, I'll talk to you later. He says, I love you. I'll call you later. And I hadn't driven a mile, and I got a call.BROOKS: Artie Strout, married with five kids, was among the dead. The last picture on Artie's cell phone was of his dad holding a pool cue not long before that night turned so dark. The killer, an Army reservist who took his own life toward the end of a two-day manhunt, had several weapons that he'd purchased legally, including two AR-style semi-automatic rifles.BERNARD: I understand gun rights, but assault rifles - they're not made for anything but killing.LEROY WALKER: It's been quite a experience that none of us ever thought we'd ever face in our life.BROOKS: Leroy Walker is a city councilor in Auburn, just across the Androscoggin River from Lewiston. His son, Joe, was the manager at Schemengees. For hours after the attack, Walker didn't know if his son was dead or alive until state police officers came to his daughter-in-law's house to deliver the news.WALKER: My son had been shot and killed at the scene. We found out that my son was a hero, that he had picked up a knife somehow and was headed towards the gunman. And the gunman, of course, shot him in the stomach area twice.BROOKS: Joe Walker left behind a wife and their blended family of two children and three grandchildren. His father, Leroy Walker, says he now favors tougher gun control, though he says he's not sure what should happen to stop the killing.WALKER: But there needs to be some way to control how these weapons are fired to kill people. One that can fire 30 or 60 or 90 shots off and to be able to kill people in seconds - that needs to change somehow.BROOKS: It remains to be seen if state lawmakers will change anything on guns when they reconvene next month. On the federal level, Maine Senator Angus King is sponsoring legislation that stops short of a full ban on AR-style semi-automatic weapons, but it would limit the number of rounds of gun's magazine could hold.ANGUS KING: The key here is that in the midst of a mass shooting, it's when the shooter has to reload that there's an opportunity either for people to escape or to disarm the shooter.DAVID TRAHAN: We think that initiative really has no chance of going anywhere.BROOKS: David Trahan is executive director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, an influential gun rights group. The group helped write Maine's yellow flag law, which is supposed to give police a way to take guns away from people if a doctor deems them dangerous. In the case of the Lewiston shooter, it didn't work, despite multiple warnings that he was suffering a mental health crisis. Family, doctors and police all knew about it, but, Trahan says, nobody heeded the warnings.TRAHAN: The people that have the responsibility did not initiate the tools that they had to protect the public. For some reason, this guy fell through the cracks.BROOKS: Trahan says laws should focus on mental health, not guns. But gun control advocates say states with the lowest rates of gun violence do both. They have red flag laws, background checks, bans on semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines. Arthur Bernard says Maine should follow suit, even if it's too late to save his son Artie.BERNARD: His daughter Brianna turned 14 six days after this happened. You know, her mom has been trying to talk to her about what she wants for Christmas. You know, she keeps telling her mom, you can't give me what I want.BROOKS: Many Americans share Bernard's grief. Since his son and 17 others were killed in Lewiston, there have been at least five other mass shootings across the country.For NPR News, I'm Anthony Brooks in Lewiston, Maine. LEILA FADEL, HOST: Nearly two months after a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, families and their community are still looking for answers. The gunman opened fire in a bowling alley and a pool hall, and 18 people were killed. Thirteen were wounded. As Anthony Brooks of member station WBUR reports, some of the victims' relatives now find themselves unexpectedly in the role of gun control activists. ANTHONY BROOKS, BYLINE: Decorations are up, and holiday music plays in many of the stores along Lisbon Street in downtown Lewiston. There are also signs that read, Lewiston strong, reminders of the deep grief that remains here. Following the worst mass shooting in Maine's history, people like Arthur Bernard are suddenly activists, pushing for restrictions on the kind of weapon the shooter used to kill his son. ARTHUR BERNARD: There has to be some basic common sense here. And what does it take? BROOKS: Bernard was playing pool with his son Artie Strout at Schemengees Bar and Grill on the night of the shooting. Arthur headed home early, while his son stayed on at the bar. BERNARD: I says, all right, kid. I says, I'll talk to you later. He says, I love you. I'll call you later. And I hadn't driven a mile, and I got a call. BROOKS: Artie Strout, married with five kids, was among the dead. The last picture on Artie's cell phone was of his dad holding a pool cue not long before that night turned so dark. The killer, an Army reservist who took his own life toward the end of a two-day manhunt, had several weapons that he'd purchased legally, including two AR-style semi-automatic rifles. BERNARD: I understand gun rights, but assault rifles - they're not made for anything but killing. LEROY WALKER: It's been quite a experience that none of us ever thought we'd ever face in our life. BROOKS: Leroy Walker is a city councilor in Auburn, just across the Androscoggin River from Lewiston. His son, Joe, was the manager at Schemengees. For hours after the attack, Walker didn't know if his son was dead or alive until state police officers came to his daughter-in-law's house to deliver the news. WALKER: My son had been shot and killed at the scene. We found out that my son was a hero, that he had picked up a knife somehow and was headed towards the gunman. And the gunman, of course, shot him in the stomach area twice. BROOKS: Joe Walker left behind a wife and their blended family of two children and three grandchildren. His father, Leroy Walker, says he now favors tougher gun control, though he says he's not sure what should happen to stop the killing. WALKER: But there needs to be some way to control how these weapons are fired to kill people. One that can fire 30 or 60 or 90 shots off and to be able to kill people in seconds - that needs to change somehow. BROOKS: It remains to be seen if state lawmakers will change anything on guns when they reconvene next month. On the federal level, Maine Senator Angus King is sponsoring legislation that stops short of a full ban on AR-style semi-automatic weapons, but it would limit the number of rounds of gun's magazine could hold. ANGUS KING: The key here is that in the midst of a mass shooting, it's when the shooter has to reload that there's an opportunity either for people to escape or to disarm the shooter. DAVID TRAHAN: We think that initiative really has no chance of going anywhere. BROOKS: David Trahan is executive director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, an influential gun rights group. The group helped write Maine's yellow flag law, which is supposed to give police a way to take guns away from people if a doctor deems them dangerous. In the case of the Lewiston shooter, it didn't work, despite multiple warnings that he was suffering a mental health crisis. Family, doctors and police all knew about it, but, Trahan says, nobody heeded the warnings. TRAHAN: The people that have the responsibility did not initiate the tools that they had to protect the public. For some reason, this guy fell through the cracks. BROOKS: Trahan says laws should focus on mental health, not guns. But gun control advocates say states with the lowest rates of gun violence do both. They have red flag laws, background checks, bans on semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines. Arthur Bernard says Maine should follow suit, even if it's too late to save his son Artie. BERNARD: His daughter Brianna turned 14 six days after this happened. You know, her mom has been trying to talk to her about what she wants for Christmas. You know, she keeps telling her mom, you can't give me what I want. BROOKS: Many Americans share Bernard's grief. Since his son and 17 others were killed in Lewiston, there have been at least five other mass shootings across the country. For NPR News, I'm Anthony Brooks in Lewiston, Maine. Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  The Associated Press Temple Israel Synagogue is seen, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023, in Canton, Ohio, after charges came to light against a 13-year-old boy who allegedly planned a mass shooting targeting the synagogue, including drawing maps of the building, back in September. Kevin Whitlock/AP hide caption Temple Israel Synagogue is seen, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023, in Canton, Ohio, after charges came to light against a 13-year-old boy who allegedly planned a mass shooting targeting the synagogue, including drawing maps of the building, back in September. CANTON, Ohio — A 13-year old boy from Canton, Ohio, has been charged with allegedly planning a mass shooting of a local Jewish synagogue. The teenager, who is unnamed in court documents because he is a minor, is charged with inducing panic and disorderly conduct, both misdemeanors. He's accused of posting a "detailed plan to complete a mass shooting" at Temple Israel in Canton, a city south of Akron, on the live streaming platform Discord. The charges come amid a rise of antisemitism in the United States and worldwide. In the U.S. alone, antisemitic incidents rose 35% from 2021 to 2022. According to documents released by the Stark County Sherriff's Office Thursday, an FBI agent alerted the department to the Discord posts on Sept. 7. The plans were initially posted on Sept. 1, and contained maps of the synagogue allegedly drawn by the boy and another individual in Washington state. They also included plans to burn down and "shoot up" the building. When confronted by law enforcement, the boy admitted to being a part of multiple antisemitic and political groups on the platform, according to the documents. He was then arrested, and a trial hearing is set for Dec. 20. "We stand by a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to threats made against our community," Stark County Sheriff George Maier said in a statement. "Every threat is investigated thoroughly with the seriousness it deserves." An attorney for the boy did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment. Temple Israel's Rabbi, Komerofsky, declined to comment on the situation because it involves a minor. In a statement on social media, the Anti-Defamation League of Cleveland said the organization is grateful for law enforcement's swift action and that it hope it's a "teachable" moment for young people . "Hate and threats on social media, as in real life, cannot and will not be tolerated," the league said in the statement. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Steve Inskeep One of the most reliable and prolific meteor showers of the years continues its peak tonight. The Geminid display delivers up to 120 shooting stars per hour. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: OK, this is a week for a cosmic spectacle. The Geminid meteor shower has been lighting up the night skies. At its peak, which continues through tonight, stargazers can see dozens of shooting stars each hour. While most meteor showers are made up of icy and dusty comet particles, Kelly Beatty at Sky and Telescope magazine tells WBUR'S Here and Now that Geminids are different.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)KELLY BEATTY: This is due to an asteroid called Phaethon, which circles the sun very tightly - comes as close as 13 million miles to the sun, gets to 1,300 degrees on its surface.INSKEEP: That sounds hot. Described by NASA as the most reliable meteor shower of the year, the Geminid shower gets its name from the constellation Gemini, where the meteors first appear.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)BEATTY: Little particles are being blasted off by sunlight, and it's those little particles spread along its orbit that we plow through every December. They create a streak that's bright enough to actually trigger a color response in our eye. But if it gets bright enough, then we can see a bright color and different colors in these meteors.INSKEEP: I love that perspective. It's not that they're falling on us. We are plowing through them. As the Earth orbits the sun moving around, it passes through this trail of asteroid debris, where they burn up on contact with our atmosphere.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)BEATTY: Twenty miles a second these particles...ROBIN YOUNG: Oh, boy.BEATTY: ...Are hitting our atmosphere. And so they hit very high up - you know, 80 miles up - 60, 80 miles. And they create a superheated, white streak in the atmosphere.INSKEEP: You can see the Geminid display through December 24 starting around 9 or 10 at night. Here's a pro tip - get the best view after midnight and turn toward a patch of dark sky.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)BEATTY: That could be straight up. It could be, you know, to the south - wherever it's darkest. Get away from city lights. Turn off the porch light. Let your eyes get adjusted to the dark, and you might see up to one meteor per minute.INSKEEP: NASA says that, at its peak - and again, that continues tonight - the Geminid meteor shower delivers as many as 120 shooting stars per hour, delivered by the universe - a show that's free.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: OK, this is a week for a cosmic spectacle. The Geminid meteor shower has been lighting up the night skies. At its peak, which continues through tonight, stargazers can see dozens of shooting stars each hour. While most meteor showers are made up of icy and dusty comet particles, Kelly Beatty at Sky and Telescope magazine tells WBUR'S Here and Now that Geminids are different. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST) KELLY BEATTY: This is due to an asteroid called Phaethon, which circles the sun very tightly - comes as close as 13 million miles to the sun, gets to 1,300 degrees on its surface. INSKEEP: That sounds hot. Described by NASA as the most reliable meteor shower of the year, the Geminid shower gets its name from the constellation Gemini, where the meteors first appear. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST) BEATTY: Little particles are being blasted off by sunlight, and it's those little particles spread along its orbit that we plow through every December. They create a streak that's bright enough to actually trigger a color response in our eye. But if it gets bright enough, then we can see a bright color and different colors in these meteors. INSKEEP: I love that perspective. It's not that they're falling on us. We are plowing through them. As the Earth orbits the sun moving around, it passes through this trail of asteroid debris, where they burn up on contact with our atmosphere. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST) BEATTY: Twenty miles a second these particles... ROBIN YOUNG: Oh, boy. BEATTY: ...Are hitting our atmosphere. And so they hit very high up - you know, 80 miles up - 60, 80 miles. And they create a superheated, white streak in the atmosphere. INSKEEP: You can see the Geminid display through December 24 starting around 9 or 10 at night. Here's a pro tip - get the best view after midnight and turn toward a patch of dark sky. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST) BEATTY: That could be straight up. It could be, you know, to the south - wherever it's darkest. Get away from city lights. Turn off the porch light. Let your eyes get adjusted to the dark, and you might see up to one meteor per minute. INSKEEP: NASA says that, at its peak - and again, that continues tonight - the Geminid meteor shower delivers as many as 120 shooting stars per hour, delivered by the universe - a show that's free. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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From By  Quinn Klinefelter Ethan Crumbley stands with his attorneys Paulette Loftin (left) and Amy Hopp during his senencing hearing in Pontiac, Mich. Parents of students killed at Michigan's Oxford High School described the anguish of losing their children Friday as a judge considered whether Crumbley would serve a life sentence for the 2021 mass shooting. Carlos Osorio/AP hide caption Ethan Crumbley stands with his attorneys Paulette Loftin (left) and Amy Hopp during his senencing hearing in Pontiac, Mich. Parents of students killed at Michigan's Oxford High School described the anguish of losing their children Friday as a judge considered whether Crumbley would serve a life sentence for the 2021 mass shooting. The Michigan teen whose murderous rampage took the lives of four classmates at Oxford High School in November, 2021, will spend the rest of his life behind bars. That's the sentence handed-down by a Michigan judge after hours of often heart-wrenching statements by survivors and families of the victims, among others. It was just over two years ago when then-15-year-old Ethan Crumbley emerged from an Oxford High School bathroom with a handgun and began methodically firing at students and a school employee. He killed four of his classmates, most shot at point-blank range, then put his gun down and calmly waited for law enforcement officials to arrive. Crumbley pleaded guilty last year to 24 felonies, including murder and terrorism. It's unusual to file a terror charge in such a case. But prosecutors said it reflected the trauma the shooting inflicted on everyone from children who hid under their desks during the massacre to an entire Oxford community scarred by the heinous nature of the act. The Michigan teen whose murderous rampage took the lives of four classmates at Oxford High School in November, 2021, will spend the rest of his life behind bars. That's the sentence handed-down by a Michigan judge after hours of often heart-wrenching statements by survivors and families of the victims, among others. It was just over two years ago when then-15-year-old Ethan Crumbley emerged from an Oxford High School bathroom with a handgun and began methodically firing at students and a school employee. He killed four of his classmates, most shot at point-blank range, then put his gun down and calmly waited for law enforcement officials to arrive. Crumbley pleaded guilty last year to 24 felonies, including murder and terrorism. It's unusual to file a terror charge in such a case. But prosecutors said it reflected the trauma the shooting inflicted on everyone from children who hid under their desks during the massacre to an entire Oxford community scarred by the heinous nature of the act. EMOTIONAL STATEMENTS FROM VICTIMS, FAMILIES In court, those who survived the gunfire in the school hallway again faced Crumbley, who kept his head bowed throughout most of the proceedings. Amid tears and tales of continuing trauma, former student Kylie Ossege described how Crumbley's bullets tore into her back, near her spine, leaving her with debilitating injuries. Ossege said she constantly relives the moment she crumpled to the floor of the school hallway next to student Hana St. Juliana, who was dying from another gun shot. "15 minutes of lying there absolutely helpless," Ossege remembered. "15 minutes of lying in a pool of my own blood. 15 minutes of hearing Hana St. Juliana's last sounds while stroking her hair and trying to encourage her." St. Juliana's father, Steve St. Juliana, was among the parents of Oxford students who talked about families struggling to stay together in the aftermath of the shooting, even marriages falling apart. St. Juliana echoed repeated calls from parents and students for the judge to deny Crumbley any chance at parole, no matter how young he was when he pulled the trigger. "He purposely murdered my daughter in order to make himself feel better. His age plays no part. His potential is irrelevant. There is utterly nothing he could ever do to contribute to society that would make up for the lives that he has so ruthlessly taken," St. Juliana said. ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that a judge must weigh factors like a teen's upbringing and mental state along with the facts of the crime they committed before sentencing an underaged offender to life without the chance for parole. While the sentence could still be imposed, the court said it should be rare and only for individuals who the court deemed incapable of rehabilitation. Prosecutors told the judge, Crumbley was one of the rare juveniles that deserves Michigan's harshest penalty. They said he not only planned the shooting but also researched how long it would take police to arrive so he could surrender in time to enjoy watching the carnage he'd created. Crumbley's attorneys and his court-appointed guardian argued that at the time of the shooting, the then 15-year-old was at the mercy of a youthful brain still developing amid a troubled home life. They said he was not the same person as he was two years ago, that he was remorseful, on medication and regularly reading the Bible. CRUMBLEY SPEAKS ON HIS OWN BEHALF Towards the end of the day's long hearing, Crumbley answered yes when the judge asked if he wanted to make any comments. He told the judge he deserved any sentence that would make families in Oxford feel safe and secure again but he believed he could rehabilitate himself in prison. He also apologized to the families of the victims and survivors of the shooting. "Because I really am sorry for what I've done, what I've taken from them. I cannot give it back. But I can try my best in the future to help other people and that is what I will do," Crumbley said. JUDGE ROWE'S DECISION The last-minute mea culpa appeared to carry little weight with Judge Kwame Rowe. He said he believed there's little chance that Crumbley could ever truly be reformed. "He chose not to die on that day because he wanted the notoriety. Respectfully, the defendant is the rare juvenile before this court." After Rowe sentenced Crumbley to life without parole, the teen's attorneys said the paperwork necessary to appeal had already been signed. And there are more legal issues yet to be resolved. The teenager's parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, face their own separate trials on charges of involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors accuse them of being grossly negligent by ignoring their son's pleas for help with his mental health and instead buying him the gun used in the shooting massacre as a present. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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From By  Yvette Fernandez Police have identified the alleged gunman in Wednesday's shooting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and two of the three victims. No students were targeted. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Police have identified the suspected gunman in Wednesday's shooting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and two of the three victims. This latest incident shook a city that experienced the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history just six years ago. Yvette Fernandez from member station KNPR has this update.YVETTE FERNANDEZ, BYLINE: Students were not a target. Instead, police say the suspect targeted the teaching staff at UNLV. Two of the victims were professors at the university's business school. A third victim's identity is being withheld until next of kin are notified. A fourth shooting victim was a visiting professor being treated at a local hospital with life-threatening injuries. University Police Chief Adam Garcia said the suspect, Anthony Polito, exited Beam Hall about 10 minutes after the initial shots were fired. It was then that two plainclothes university officers confronted him and fired their weapons.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)ADAM GARCIA: These two detectives are heroes. They risked their lives in order to save countless others.FERNANDEZ: Las Vegas Police Sheriff Kevin McMahill said they learned additional information following a search of Polito's residence in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson Wednesday night.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)KEVIN MCMAHILL: Importantly, there was a chair with an arrow pointing down to a document. That document was similar to a last will and testament. There was ammunition consistent with the same cartridge cases located at the scene, and there was a Taurus handgun box matching the handgun that he used.FERNANDEZ: Police also learned the alleged shooter sent 22 letters to several university faculty at both UNLV and East Carolina University in North Carolina. University president Doctor Keith Whitfield said support is available through the community's Resiliency Center. That center was created following the October 1, 2017, mass shooting in Las Vegas, which claimed the lives of 60 people and wounded hundreds. Whitfield says the school and the greater Las Vegas community will be impacted by this week's shooting.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)KEITH WHITFIELD: Incidents like these actually rock us to the bone. This is a day that we're not going to forget. It's a day that's marked in our history from now on.FERNANDEZ: For NPR News, I'm Yvette Fernandez in Las Vegas.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Police have identified the suspected gunman in Wednesday's shooting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and two of the three victims. This latest incident shook a city that experienced the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history just six years ago. Yvette Fernandez from member station KNPR has this update. YVETTE FERNANDEZ, BYLINE: Students were not a target. Instead, police say the suspect targeted the teaching staff at UNLV. Two of the victims were professors at the university's business school. A third victim's identity is being withheld until next of kin are notified. A fourth shooting victim was a visiting professor being treated at a local hospital with life-threatening injuries. University Police Chief Adam Garcia said the suspect, Anthony Polito, exited Beam Hall about 10 minutes after the initial shots were fired. It was then that two plainclothes university officers confronted him and fired their weapons. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) ADAM GARCIA: These two detectives are heroes. They risked their lives in order to save countless others. FERNANDEZ: Las Vegas Police Sheriff Kevin McMahill said they learned additional information following a search of Polito's residence in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson Wednesday night. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) KEVIN MCMAHILL: Importantly, there was a chair with an arrow pointing down to a document. That document was similar to a last will and testament. There was ammunition consistent with the same cartridge cases located at the scene, and there was a Taurus handgun box matching the handgun that he used. FERNANDEZ: Police also learned the alleged shooter sent 22 letters to several university faculty at both UNLV and East Carolina University in North Carolina. University president Doctor Keith Whitfield said support is available through the community's Resiliency Center. That center was created following the October 1, 2017, mass shooting in Las Vegas, which claimed the lives of 60 people and wounded hundreds. Whitfield says the school and the greater Las Vegas community will be impacted by this week's shooting. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) KEITH WHITFIELD: Incidents like these actually rock us to the bone. This is a day that we're not going to forget. It's a day that's marked in our history from now on. FERNANDEZ: For NPR News, I'm Yvette Fernandez in Las Vegas. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. 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Advertisement <iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/hereandnow/2023/12/07/lewiston-shooting-trauma"></iframe> It's been nearly six weeks since a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, left 18 people dead and more than a dozen injured. Less than a week ago, several hundred people gathered downtown in an event that some see as a way to help process trauma and grief. But Susan Sharon of Maine Public Radio found that other Lewiston residents are not ready to gather just yet. This segment aired on December 7, 2023. Advertisement

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By  Emily Olson ,  Vanessa Romo ,  Jonathan Franklin University of Nevada, Las Vegas professors Naoko Takemaru (left), Cha-Jan "Jerry" Chang and Patricia Navarro-Velez were killed during a shooting on campus on Wednesday. Takemaru oversaw UNLV's Japanese Studies program while Chang and Navarro-Velez were both professors in the business school. University of Nevada, Las Vegas hide caption University of Nevada, Las Vegas professors Naoko Takemaru (left), Cha-Jan "Jerry" Chang and Patricia Navarro-Velez were killed during a shooting on campus on Wednesday. Takemaru oversaw UNLV's Japanese Studies program while Chang and Navarro-Velez were both professors in the business school. A gunman who opened fire at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on Wednesday killed three faculty members and left one injured, the university said. On Thursday, the university identified two of the victims as Patricia Navarro-Velez, 39, of Las Vegas and Cha-Jan "Jerry" Chang, 64, of Henderson, Nev. — both professors in the business school. On Friday, the Clark County coroner's office identified the third person killed: Naoko Takemaru, 69, of Las Vegas, who oversaw UNLV's Japanese Studies program. UNLV said another faculty member, who was not identified, remains hospitalized. On Friday, the university announced that next week's scheduled in-person final exams have been cancelled, but said it has decided to proceed with commencement ceremonies Dec. 19-20. "The milestone moment of commencement is the most special day on the university calendar, and it's in difficult times like these that we can and should celebrate our graduates' academic dreams fulfilled," UNLV President Keith Whitfield wrote. Police officers keep watch Thursday near the scene outside Frank and Estella Beam Hall, where the Lee Business School is located, the morning after a shooting left three dead at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus. Mario Tama/Getty Images hide caption Police officers keep watch Thursday near the scene outside Frank and Estella Beam Hall, where the Lee Business School is located, the morning after a shooting left three dead at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus. At a news conference Thursday, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill identified the shooting suspect as 67-year-old Anthony Polito. McMahill told reporters that officials had been able to search Polito's car and house but haven't pinned down the motive for the shooting. "I want to stress that we're still learning a lot about this suspect and still trying to understand the motive," McMahill said. "We know he applied numerous times for a job with several Nevada higher education institutions and was denied each time." McMahill added that Polito had a list of people he was seeking on the UNLV campus, as well as faculty from East Carolina University, where he had once worked. The sheriff told reporters that police had contacted all the individuals on that list to make sure they were OK, with the exception of one individual who was on an international flight. Before the shooting, Polito had sent letters to various UNLV personnel across the country with no return address, McMahill said. He told reporters that law enforcement officials still do not know the content of all the letters, but he said that at least one of them had an "unknown white powder substance" in it. Police later said on X (formerly Twitter) that the powder was found to be harmless. McMahill urged that if anybody in the education sector receives a letter with no return address that is taped, they should proceed with caution and contact their local authorities. The Associated Press reported that Polito, who was killed in a shootout with law enforcement, did not appear to be targeting students, according to two law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the investigation. "What students, employees, and campus visitors endured yesterday during the shooting and the tense aftermath is life-changing," Whitfield said in a statement. "My heart breaks for the families, friends, and loved ones of Dr. Navarro and Dr. Chang, and for all of the victims of this senseless act of violence that has physically and emotionally affected so many," he also stated. "During this time, it's especially important for all of us to be there for each other and I am committed to doing all I can for all of our students and staff – to listen, to comfort, and to let them know we care deeply about them and their wellbeing." It was just six years ago and a few miles west that Las Vegas experienced the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, when a gunman opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest country music festival, claiming the lives of 60 people. Wednesday's shooting started around 11:45 a.m. local time on the fourth floor of the Lee Business School at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. It ended outside, with two university detectives fatally shooting the gunman. The Associated Press reported that Polito was a professor who had recently been rejected for a job at the school. For the roughly 40 minutes between the first shots and the all-clear, the campus waited in a state of unease, apprehension and terror. Parents Mabel Fontanilla and Raul Villalonga embrace following the shooting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus on Wednesday. Ronda Churchill/AFP via Getty Images hide caption Parents Mabel Fontanilla and Raul Villalonga embrace following the shooting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus on Wednesday. Law student Carlos Eduardo Espina, 24, had just finished one of his last final exams when his classroom received the alerts of an active shooter. "At first it didn't seem real. And then you just say, 'Oh s***. It's my turn, I guess,'" he told NPR by phone on Wednesday evening. "That's just the way it's going. This is happening more and more often." Since the start of this year, more than 630 mass shootings have claimed lives across the U.S., according to the Gun Violence Archive. One poll released this year found that half of Americans have been impacted by gun violence — 1 in 6 say they've personally witnessed a shooting. It was only last week that Espina stood in a crowd to watch a Christmas parade and wondered aloud to his girlfriend not whether, but when, he would get swept up in some kind of mass shooting, he said. "It's not gonna be the last time," he predicted on Wednesday. "I wouldn't be surprised if there's another, something like this, I don't know, within a few days or weeks. That's just how things are nowadays." When UNLV alerted students to the shooting on social media, the warning included the phrase "This is not a test," followed by what has become the standby survival advice: "RUN-HIDE-FIGHT." Ph.D. student Kathryn Henry said it felt like the city's history with tragedy at least left campus authorities more prepared to respond again. When the shooting started, she was on the other end of campus, ordering a bagel in the campus recreation center. The next thing she knew, she was swept into a locker room with roughly 100 other people and spent the next two hours sheltering in place. "Nobody panicked," she said. "They were all very calm. They were very professional. You could tell the drills had worked." But even the highest levels of preparedness couldn't insulate her from the fear. When NPR spoke to Henry on Wednesday evening, she was still waiting to hear back from friends, students and colleagues, checking her phone and email for confirmation that everyone was safe. Police stressed that the death toll would've been far higher if the officers had responded with less speed. It's unclear how many of the 30,000 students were on campus on Wednesday, but McMahill said a group of students had gathered outside the business school building at the time of the shooting, marking the end of the term with picnics and games. UNLV's 332-acre campus is less than 4 miles from the Mandalay Bay hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, where a 64-year-old gunman opened fire from a hotel window on Oct. 1, 2017, targeting a crowd of thousands attending the open-air Route 91 Harvest country music concert below. In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Mandalay Bay's parent company, MGM Resorts, thanked first responders who "once again" acted with courage and speed. The Park MGM Las Vegas hotel was one of several resorts along the Vegas Strip that lit up its marquee with what has become a familiar phrase: #VegasStrong. That hashtag, which trended in the days following 2017's shooting, once again was among the most shared phrases on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday. But this time, some of those sharing the hashtag are saying they don't want to feel strong; they just want to feel safe. i am 22 years old. today is the third time in my life i’ve had to hide in a locked classroom because of an active shooter threat on a school campus. when will america change? #UNLV #VegasStrong Rachel Weese, who works as a research coordinator at the school, shared the #VegasStrong hashtag alongside a post explaining that Wednesday's shooting marked the third time she has had to hide in a locked classroom because of the threat of an active shooter. She told NPR in a social media message that the potential shooters were disarmed before anyone was injured in the first two incidents, but three times feels like too many. She added in her post, "when will america change?" Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  The Associated Press Amanda Perez, left, is comforted by fellow student Alejandro Barron following a shooting on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, campus, Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Las Vegas. K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP hide caption Amanda Perez, left, is comforted by fellow student Alejandro Barron following a shooting on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, campus, Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Las Vegas. LAS VEGAS — The man suspected of fatally shooting three people and wounding another at a Las Vegas university Wednesday was a professor who unsuccessfully sought a job at the school, a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press. The gunman was killed in a shootout with law enforcement, police said. The attack at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, sent shock waves through a city still scarred by the deaths of 60 people in a 2017 mass shooting. The suspect previously worked at East Carolina University in North Carolina, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information publicly. Police didn't immediately identify the gunman, the victims or a possible motive. Reports of shots fired at about 11:45 a.m. sent police swarming onto the campus while students and professors barricaded themselves inside classrooms and dorm rooms. Police said the shooting started on the fourth floor of the building that houses UNLV's Lee Business School. The gunman went to several floors before he was killed in a shootout with two university detectives outside the building, said UNLV Police Chief Adam Garcia. Authorities gave the all-clear about 40 minutes after the first report of an active shooter. Professor Kevaney Martin took cover under a desk in her classroom, where another faculty member and three students took shelter with her. "It was terrifying. I can't even begin to explain," Martin said. "I was trying to hold it together for my students, and trying not to cry, but the emotions are something I never want to experience again." Martin said she was texting friends and loved ones, hoping to receive word a suspect had been detained. When another professor came to the room and told everyone to evacuate, they joined dozens of others rushing out of the building. Martin had her students pile into her car and drove them off campus. Law enforcement officers head into the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, campus after reports of an active shooter, Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Las Vegas. Steve Marcus/AP hide caption Law enforcement officers head into the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, campus after reports of an active shooter, Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Las Vegas. "Once we got away from UNLV, we parked and sat in silence," she said. "Nobody said a word. We were in utter shock." Students and the community were alerted to the emergency by a university post on X that warned: "This is not a test. RUN-HIDE-FIGHT." Matthew Felsenfeld said he and about 12 classmates barricaded their door in a building near the student union. "It's the moment you call your parents and tell them you love them," said Felsenfeld, a 21-year-old journalism student. Another student, Jordan Eckermann, 25, said he was in his business law class in a second-floor classroom when he heard a loud bang that he thought came from a neighboring music class. But then a piercing alarm went off, sending students to their feet. Some ran from the room in panic while others heeded their professor's instructions to stay calm, said Eckermann. He walked out and locked eyes with a law enforcement officer in a bulletproof vest holding a long gun. Clothing, backpacks and water bottles lay scattered on the floor. Eckerman said he mouthed to the officer, "Where do I go?" The officer pointed to an exit. Minutes later, when he was outside, Eckermann said he heard bursts of gunshots, totaling at least 20 rounds. The air smelled of gun powder. He said he kept walking away from campus, even though he didn't know where to go. UNLV's 332-acre (135-hectare) campus is less than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) east of the Las Vegas Strip. It wasn't immediately clear how many of the 30,000 students were on campus at the time, but Sheriff Kevin McMahill said students had been gathered outside the building to eat and play games. If police hadn't killed the attacker, "it could have been countless additional lives taken," he said. "No student should have to fear pursuing their dreams on a college campus," the sheriff said. The shooting occurred just miles from the location of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. In the Oct. 1, 2017, massacre, a gunman opened fire from a high-rise suite at the Mandalay Bay, killing 60 people attending a music festival below and wounding hundreds more. In response to the campus shootings, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop of all flights coming into Harry Reid International Airport. The university is roughly 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) north of the airport. Classes were canceled through Friday at the university, and UNLV's basketball game at the University of Dayton, Ohio, was canceled Wednesday night because of the shootings. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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More than a month after a deadly mass-shooting, Lewiston, Maine, businesses are feeling the economic pain just as residents deal with the trauma of the attacks. AILSA CHANG, HOST: It's been nearly six weeks since a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, left 18 dead and 13 injured. But this past Saturday, several hundred people filled the downtown streets. And some see these types of celebrations as a way to help process their trauma and grief, but Susan Sharon of Maine Public Radio found that other Lewiston residents are not ready to gather yet.SUSAN SHARON, BYLINE: Christmas was Joe Walker's favorite time of year. He was the essence of jolly, says his daughter, Bethany Welch, someone who knew how to make other people laugh.BETHANY WELCH: He had this, like, elf costume he would wear at all the family Christmas parties. And he would make my mom dress up with him. And then he'll do, like, Santa dressing, too, because he had the belly to be like Santa.SHARON: Walker was the manager of Schemengees Bar and Grille. He was among those killed by a man who also opened fire at a bowling alley a few miles away on October 25. Just three days before he died, Welch says her dad called her and they had a lengthy, unplanned conversation about her immediate life goals - graduation from nursing school at the University of Connecticut, buying a house and marrying her fiance, for starters.WELCH: He was just like, yep, that sounds like a good plan, daughter. I'm so proud of you, like, and all this stuff. And then I don't want to go back on my word. Like, he approved it, he was proud of it, he knew what it was.SHARON: When she heard about the shootings, Welch says she jumped in her car and drove for several hours through the night straight to Schemengees from Connecticut, desperate for any word about her dad. His permanent absence has yet to hit her, she says. She got through Thanksgiving by distracting herself with work. But she graduates this month, and then there's Christmas.WELCH: Yeah, it's going to be a hard one.SHARON: Even those who didn't lose anyone are trying to figure out how to get into the Christmas spirit, and then how to move forward.UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Three, two, one.(CHEERING)UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Kwanzaa. Happy holidays season.SHARON: Matthew and Martha Agren of Lewiston showed up for the city's menorah and tree lighting ceremony wearing we are one Lewiston T-shirts underneath their jackets.MATTHEW AGREN: We became one town one horrible evening. It's the first time in a long time this town's been united over anything, and I hope it stays that way for many years to come.SHARON: The Agrens say it's uplifting to gather for occasions like this one, but other residents still aren't comfortable going out. As a result, Shanna Cox, president of the Lewiston Auburn Chamber of Commerce, says some hospitality businesses are down by as much as 60%. The chamber has started one of several fund drives to help the community recover.SHANNA COX: We're all just at different points in that journey. I think what I do see universally is a desire to find a way through. And I'm so glad to see the resiliency that has always been here in Lewiston where we're gritty and we're an underdog people. And so we know folks are rooting for us.SHARON: For bar owner Kathy Lebel, finding a way through will likely mean reopening Schemengees in a different location. Lebel wasn't working the night of the shooting, but she says she still feels powerless about not doing more to protect her loyal customers and friends. She's carried that sense of unease to her other Lewiston restaurant, where she now pictures herself like a flight attendant.KATHY LEBEL: Welcome to the Station Grill. Please have a seat. Take a look at your menu. To your right is an exit and to your left, please pay attention to the other exit. And it's not right, but that's kind of how I feel. Like, I want people to be aware.SHARON: Lebel isn't sure how she'll get by without Joe Walker, whom she calls her right-hand man. But this year she's carrying on his holiday tradition of raising money for needy families. Walker's daughter, Bethany Welch, meanwhile, has amended the life plan she shared with her dad after watching first responders in action on the tragic night of the shootings. She says she's found her calling as a trauma nurse. She's confident he'd be pleased.For NPR News, I'm Susan Sharon in Lewiston, Maine.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) AILSA CHANG, HOST: It's been nearly six weeks since a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, left 18 dead and 13 injured. But this past Saturday, several hundred people filled the downtown streets. And some see these types of celebrations as a way to help process their trauma and grief, but Susan Sharon of Maine Public Radio found that other Lewiston residents are not ready to gather yet. SUSAN SHARON, BYLINE: Christmas was Joe Walker's favorite time of year. He was the essence of jolly, says his daughter, Bethany Welch, someone who knew how to make other people laugh. BETHANY WELCH: He had this, like, elf costume he would wear at all the family Christmas parties. And he would make my mom dress up with him. And then he'll do, like, Santa dressing, too, because he had the belly to be like Santa. SHARON: Walker was the manager of Schemengees Bar and Grille. He was among those killed by a man who also opened fire at a bowling alley a few miles away on October 25. Just three days before he died, Welch says her dad called her and they had a lengthy, unplanned conversation about her immediate life goals - graduation from nursing school at the University of Connecticut, buying a house and marrying her fiance, for starters. WELCH: He was just like, yep, that sounds like a good plan, daughter. I'm so proud of you, like, and all this stuff. And then I don't want to go back on my word. Like, he approved it, he was proud of it, he knew what it was. SHARON: When she heard about the shootings, Welch says she jumped in her car and drove for several hours through the night straight to Schemengees from Connecticut, desperate for any word about her dad. His permanent absence has yet to hit her, she says. She got through Thanksgiving by distracting herself with work. But she graduates this month, and then there's Christmas. WELCH: Yeah, it's going to be a hard one. SHARON: Even those who didn't lose anyone are trying to figure out how to get into the Christmas spirit, and then how to move forward. UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Three, two, one. (CHEERING) UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Kwanzaa. Happy holidays season. SHARON: Matthew and Martha Agren of Lewiston showed up for the city's menorah and tree lighting ceremony wearing we are one Lewiston T-shirts underneath their jackets. MATTHEW AGREN: We became one town one horrible evening. It's the first time in a long time this town's been united over anything, and I hope it stays that way for many years to come. SHARON: The Agrens say it's uplifting to gather for occasions like this one, but other residents still aren't comfortable going out. As a result, Shanna Cox, president of the Lewiston Auburn Chamber of Commerce, says some hospitality businesses are down by as much as 60%. The chamber has started one of several fund drives to help the community recover. SHANNA COX: We're all just at different points in that journey. I think what I do see universally is a desire to find a way through. And I'm so glad to see the resiliency that has always been here in Lewiston where we're gritty and we're an underdog people. And so we know folks are rooting for us. SHARON: For bar owner Kathy Lebel, finding a way through will likely mean reopening Schemengees in a different location. Lebel wasn't working the night of the shooting, but she says she still feels powerless about not doing more to protect her loyal customers and friends. She's carried that sense of unease to her other Lewiston restaurant, where she now pictures herself like a flight attendant. KATHY LEBEL: Welcome to the Station Grill. Please have a seat. Take a look at your menu. To your right is an exit and to your left, please pay attention to the other exit. And it's not right, but that's kind of how I feel. Like, I want people to be aware. SHARON: Lebel isn't sure how she'll get by without Joe Walker, whom she calls her right-hand man. But this year she's carrying on his holiday tradition of raising money for needy families. Walker's daughter, Bethany Welch, meanwhile, has amended the life plan she shared with her dad after watching first responders in action on the tragic night of the shootings. She says she's found her calling as a trauma nurse. She's confident he'd be pleased. For NPR News, I'm Susan Sharon in Lewiston, Maine. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Mark Barden, whose son Daniel was shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. His story is the subject of a new documentary: A Father's Promise. 1 of 6 MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: It was a shocking event, almost unbelievable - so disturbing, it brought a usually unflappable President Obama to tears. A gunman headed to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where he killed 20 first-graders and six teachers and then himself. That was nearly 11 years ago, and the tragedy galvanized a new push for gun safety regulations. But little has changed, except for more school shootings and other mass shootings that have taken many more lives.MARK BARDEN: It's about too-easy access to too many guns, and with very little regulations. That's what it is. That's what sets us apart.MARTIN: That's Mark Barden. His son, Daniel, was 7 years old when he was killed at Sandy Hook, and Barden is keeping his son's memory and his own hopes for change alive through a new documentary.BARDEN: It's a way to involve a whole new constituency and hopefully just increase the engagement of folks who want to see us do better.MARTIN: "A Father's Promise" is out in select theaters on Friday. It's executive-produced by Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Sheryl Crow and tells how Barden, at least, found his path to healing and meaning. I spoke with him about it recently.BARDEN: You know, we think about and miss our Daniel every single day, all the time, and do everything we can to prevent other families from having to endure this.MARTIN: You know, one moment that struck me in the film was when your wife, Jackie, said she couldn't believe that her son was killed. She just thought, there's just no way. And I'm sorry to take you back to that moment, but do you remember - what was your first thought?BARDEN: Oh, very much similar. There's - I mean, when - I was at home, having dropped off all three kids on their respective buses that morning, and I started getting text messages and phone calls and emails about, you know, a lockdown in the district. And I remember thinking, OK, you know, there's - they're taking a safety precaution for whatever reason. And then a neighbor called and said there was a shooting at Sandy Hook, and I was just in motion, flying down to the school where I had been many, many times as a volunteer for various things and arriving on a scene that looked incomprehensible, with all of the emergency vehicles and personnel all over this little, provincial setting. It just looked surreal.And as more information became available and that maybe there was a shooting inside the school - and I immediately started to gear up to, if that's true, I'm going to have to figure out how to explain that to this beautiful, little empath, which is our Daniel. And as the day - the morning went on, you know, the news became more clear. And sometimes today - sometimes, you know, it's hard now to imagine that Daniel is gone and gone forever.MARTIN: You know, for you, you're a musician - a professional musician - and music is so much a part of your life, and it was a part of your kids' lives and how you - at first, you just didn't want to touch an instrument. And could you just talk a little bit about that?BARDEN: You're right because, as a musician, the natural tendency is to think, well, a devastating tragedy occurs, and that's going to be your solace, and that's what you'll turn to for comfort. And I think because all three of my children - James, Natalie and Daniel - were very connected to my music - and Daniel very much so - as a result, I just couldn't get near music or think about playing guitar for quite some time after that. And it's been a journey in process, and the work that I've been able to do through Rick Korn's documentary has afforded me some wonderful musical opportunities and kind of continuance of my journey back to music - back to my true self, I should say.MARTIN: Some of the film - and I'm - just for people who haven't seen it yet - and it's a little different from what people might expect - is, I mean, yes, there is footage of you playing and of them playing, but some of it is just them letting you talk. How was that for you? Was that helpful?BARDEN: Yeah. You know, maybe in retrospect, but in the moment, it's difficult for me to hear myself tell my story or hear somebody introduce me as the father or the parent of a - you know, a child who was murdered. It's still hard to comprehend that. And then to connect it with with music to know that now that my true self and my music self has been able to merge with the advocacy work that I've been doing for the last 11 years, it's an interesting worlds-collide moment for me that I think has a lot of potential.MARTIN: People who don't know you maybe as a musician, don't know your connection to these other musicians, might know you or remember you from your work in helping to launch the Sandy Hook Promise political action fund because you were very visible in the immediate aftermath, hoping to achieve some sort of policy changes that might have made a difference here. Tell us, for people who aren't familiar with it, what does the Sandy Hook Promise political action fund hope to accomplish?BARDEN: Before we had a good sense of how we wanted to evolve as an organization, we did advocate for passing the Manchin-Toomey universal background check bill. And when that bill failed, it was kind of a catalyst for us to reexamine the model. And yes, you still have to continue to support and introduce bipartisan school safety and gun safety and mental health at the policy level, but we also learned that there are always warning signs before somebody harms themselves or others.And those warning signs represent opportunities for people who are trained how to identify them and have the tools to get that individual connected to the help or the services they need before it becomes a tragedy. I think we're on our 16th school shooting that students trained in our Know the Signs program followed the model and prevented from happening, along with over 500 suicides that didn't happen because of students trained in our Know the Signs programs - knew how to get themselves the help that they need and to get the word out that we have this product.We have something that's working, and it doesn't cost anything. Bringing that through musicians and having them explain to their base, you know, there are solutions available to us. And gunshot is the No. 1 cause of death for young people under 19 in this country. It should be on everybody's list of something to be talking about and doing something about.MARTIN: Mark Barden is the father of Daniel Barden, who, as we mentioned, was killed in Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012. He and his family are featured in a new film, "A Father's Promise," which is out in select theaters on Friday. Mark Barden, thanks so much for talking to us.BARDEN: Thank you, Michel. I appreciate it.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: It was a shocking event, almost unbelievable - so disturbing, it brought a usually unflappable President Obama to tears. A gunman headed to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where he killed 20 first-graders and six teachers and then himself. That was nearly 11 years ago, and the tragedy galvanized a new push for gun safety regulations. But little has changed, except for more school shootings and other mass shootings that have taken many more lives. MARK BARDEN: It's about too-easy access to too many guns, and with very little regulations. That's what it is. That's what sets us apart. MARTIN: That's Mark Barden. His son, Daniel, was 7 years old when he was killed at Sandy Hook, and Barden is keeping his son's memory and his own hopes for change alive through a new documentary. BARDEN: It's a way to involve a whole new constituency and hopefully just increase the engagement of folks who want to see us do better. MARTIN: "A Father's Promise" is out in select theaters on Friday. It's executive-produced by Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Sheryl Crow and tells how Barden, at least, found his path to healing and meaning. I spoke with him about it recently. BARDEN: You know, we think about and miss our Daniel every single day, all the time, and do everything we can to prevent other families from having to endure this. MARTIN: You know, one moment that struck me in the film was when your wife, Jackie, said she couldn't believe that her son was killed. She just thought, there's just no way. And I'm sorry to take you back to that moment, but do you remember - what was your first thought? BARDEN: Oh, very much similar. There's - I mean, when - I was at home, having dropped off all three kids on their respective buses that morning, and I started getting text messages and phone calls and emails about, you know, a lockdown in the district. And I remember thinking, OK, you know, there's - they're taking a safety precaution for whatever reason. And then a neighbor called and said there was a shooting at Sandy Hook, and I was just in motion, flying down to the school where I had been many, many times as a volunteer for various things and arriving on a scene that looked incomprehensible, with all of the emergency vehicles and personnel all over this little, provincial setting. It just looked surreal. And as more information became available and that maybe there was a shooting inside the school - and I immediately started to gear up to, if that's true, I'm going to have to figure out how to explain that to this beautiful, little empath, which is our Daniel. And as the day - the morning went on, you know, the news became more clear. And sometimes today - sometimes, you know, it's hard now to imagine that Daniel is gone and gone forever. MARTIN: You know, for you, you're a musician - a professional musician - and music is so much a part of your life, and it was a part of your kids' lives and how you - at first, you just didn't want to touch an instrument. And could you just talk a little bit about that? BARDEN: You're right because, as a musician, the natural tendency is to think, well, a devastating tragedy occurs, and that's going to be your solace, and that's what you'll turn to for comfort. And I think because all three of my children - James, Natalie and Daniel - were very connected to my music - and Daniel very much so - as a result, I just couldn't get near music or think about playing guitar for quite some time after that. And it's been a journey in process, and the work that I've been able to do through Rick Korn's documentary has afforded me some wonderful musical opportunities and kind of continuance of my journey back to music - back to my true self, I should say. MARTIN: Some of the film - and I'm - just for people who haven't seen it yet - and it's a little different from what people might expect - is, I mean, yes, there is footage of you playing and of them playing, but some of it is just them letting you talk. How was that for you? Was that helpful? BARDEN: Yeah. You know, maybe in retrospect, but in the moment, it's difficult for me to hear myself tell my story or hear somebody introduce me as the father or the parent of a - you know, a child who was murdered. It's still hard to comprehend that. And then to connect it with with music to know that now that my true self and my music self has been able to merge with the advocacy work that I've been doing for the last 11 years, it's an interesting worlds-collide moment for me that I think has a lot of potential. MARTIN: People who don't know you maybe as a musician, don't know your connection to these other musicians, might know you or remember you from your work in helping to launch the Sandy Hook Promise political action fund because you were very visible in the immediate aftermath, hoping to achieve some sort of policy changes that might have made a difference here. Tell us, for people who aren't familiar with it, what does the Sandy Hook Promise political action fund hope to accomplish? BARDEN: Before we had a good sense of how we wanted to evolve as an organization, we did advocate for passing the Manchin-Toomey universal background check bill. And when that bill failed, it was kind of a catalyst for us to reexamine the model. And yes, you still have to continue to support and introduce bipartisan school safety and gun safety and mental health at the policy level, but we also learned that there are always warning signs before somebody harms themselves or others. And those warning signs represent opportunities for people who are trained how to identify them and have the tools to get that individual connected to the help or the services they need before it becomes a tragedy. I think we're on our 16th school shooting that students trained in our Know the Signs program followed the model and prevented from happening, along with over 500 suicides that didn't happen because of students trained in our Know the Signs programs - knew how to get themselves the help that they need and to get the word out that we have this product. We have something that's working, and it doesn't cost anything. Bringing that through musicians and having them explain to their base, you know, there are solutions available to us. And gunshot is the No. 1 cause of death for young people under 19 in this country. It should be on everybody's list of something to be talking about and doing something about. MARTIN: Mark Barden is the father of Daniel Barden, who, as we mentioned, was killed in Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012. He and his family are featured in a new film, "A Father's Promise," which is out in select theaters on Friday. Mark Barden, thanks so much for talking to us. BARDEN: Thank you, Michel. I appreciate it. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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From By  Olivia Ebertz Brown University held a vigil Monday night in support of one of its students. Hisham Awartani was wounded over the weekend along with two of his friends in what may have been a hate crime shooting. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: A Brown University student was among the three Palestinian college students shot and wounded in Burlington, Vt., last weekend. At a vigil held last night, Brown's president was shouted down as she spoke. Olivia Ebertz reports for Rhode Island member station The Public's Radio.OLIVIA EBERTZ, BYLINE: Frustrations have been growing at Brown University, an Ivy League school in Providence, where students and faculty have been protesting their administration's stance on Israel. The campus has been a pressure cooker since 20 Jewish students were arrested earlier this month during a sit-in in the administrative building. The school forced criminal trespassing charges by calling city police. And then Palestinian Brown student Hisham Awartani was shot in the spine while visiting family in Vermont. Hundreds of Brown community members poured onto the main campus green last night for a vigil that included remarks from the school's president, Christina Paxson.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)CHRISTINA PAXSON: We're powerless to do everything we'd like to do but there's so much that we are doing and continue to do.UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: You're a hypocrite. You're a hypocrite.EBERTZ: Student activists say Paxson has not met their demands, which include calling for a permanent cease-fire. They also say she failed to protect Arab students from harassment by not releasing a statement acknowledging a growth in anti-Arab sentiment until Sunday. Talia Sawiris is the president of the Arab Society at Brown. She said it took a student getting shot for the president to finally speak out against anti-Arab hate.TALIA SAWIRIS: While we welcome those condemnations, it came too late. That was the first time, and that was after weeks and weeks of students meeting with the administration recounting different instances of harassment, of discrimination on this campus.EBERTZ: But the protesters' main demand...(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting) Brown divest. Brown divest. Brown divest.EBERTZ: Students have been asking for a divestment since at least 2019. Brown's $6.5 billion endowment is indirectly invested in some companies that manufacture weapons that have been used against the Palestinian territories. Paxson has refused to bring the topic to the board. As protesters chanted refrains of Brown divest, she yelled back.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)PAXSON: We're having a vigil for your friend, our friend, our student.UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting) Brown divest. Brown divest.PAXSON: This is how you want to honor your friend.UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting) Brown divest. Brown divest.PAXSON: I'm sorry.EBERTZ: But Awartani, the student shot in Burlington, is part of Brown's divestment movement. Aboud Ashhab is a Brown junior who knows Awartani from growing up in Ramallah. He says Awartani attended the protest in which the 20 Jewish students were arrested.ABOUD ASHHAB: I wouldn't say that we're student activists. We're Palestinians. We can't separate this aspect of our lives.EBERTZ: The loud calls for divestment drowned Paxson out. The vigil resumed once she left. In an emailed statement, Brown said students, quote, "expressed themselves in the way they felt moved to." Just before the vigil, the university announced the 20 students arrested in the sit-in would no longer be charged. Twenty-nine-year-old graduate student Beckett Warzer says it was too little, too late.BECKETT WARZER: It's the bare minimum. And also, it was very clear that it was a PR move.EBERTZ: Student activists say they'll continue to ask the university to call for a cease-fire and to divest until their demands are met. For NPR News, I'm Olivia Ebertz. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: A Brown University student was among the three Palestinian college students shot and wounded in Burlington, Vt., last weekend. At a vigil held last night, Brown's president was shouted down as she spoke. Olivia Ebertz reports for Rhode Island member station The Public's Radio. OLIVIA EBERTZ, BYLINE: Frustrations have been growing at Brown University, an Ivy League school in Providence, where students and faculty have been protesting their administration's stance on Israel. The campus has been a pressure cooker since 20 Jewish students were arrested earlier this month during a sit-in in the administrative building. The school forced criminal trespassing charges by calling city police. And then Palestinian Brown student Hisham Awartani was shot in the spine while visiting family in Vermont. Hundreds of Brown community members poured onto the main campus green last night for a vigil that included remarks from the school's president, Christina Paxson. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) CHRISTINA PAXSON: We're powerless to do everything we'd like to do but there's so much that we are doing and continue to do. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: You're a hypocrite. You're a hypocrite. EBERTZ: Student activists say Paxson has not met their demands, which include calling for a permanent cease-fire. They also say she failed to protect Arab students from harassment by not releasing a statement acknowledging a growth in anti-Arab sentiment until Sunday. Talia Sawiris is the president of the Arab Society at Brown. She said it took a student getting shot for the president to finally speak out against anti-Arab hate. TALIA SAWIRIS: While we welcome those condemnations, it came too late. That was the first time, and that was after weeks and weeks of students meeting with the administration recounting different instances of harassment, of discrimination on this campus. EBERTZ: But the protesters' main demand... (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting) Brown divest. Brown divest. Brown divest. EBERTZ: Students have been asking for a divestment since at least 2019. Brown's $6.5 billion endowment is indirectly invested in some companies that manufacture weapons that have been used against the Palestinian territories. Paxson has refused to bring the topic to the board. As protesters chanted refrains of Brown divest, she yelled back. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) PAXSON: We're having a vigil for your friend, our friend, our student. UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting) Brown divest. Brown divest. PAXSON: This is how you want to honor your friend. UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting) Brown divest. Brown divest. PAXSON: I'm sorry. EBERTZ: But Awartani, the student shot in Burlington, is part of Brown's divestment movement. Aboud Ashhab is a Brown junior who knows Awartani from growing up in Ramallah. He says Awartani attended the protest in which the 20 Jewish students were arrested. ABOUD ASHHAB: I wouldn't say that we're student activists. We're Palestinians. We can't separate this aspect of our lives. EBERTZ: The loud calls for divestment drowned Paxson out. The vigil resumed once she left. In an emailed statement, Brown said students, quote, "expressed themselves in the way they felt moved to." Just before the vigil, the university announced the 20 students arrested in the sit-in would no longer be charged. Twenty-nine-year-old graduate student Beckett Warzer says it was too little, too late. BECKETT WARZER: It's the bare minimum. And also, it was very clear that it was a PR move. EBERTZ: Student activists say they'll continue to ask the university to call for a cease-fire and to divest until their demands are met. For NPR News, I'm Olivia Ebertz. Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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From By  A Martínez ,  Brittany Patterson The Vermont man accused of shooting the three students is charged with attempted murder, and was ordered held without bail. A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: Authorities are investigating whether the shooting of three young men of Palestinian descent in Vermont was a hate crime.MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: A 48-year-old man is being held in jail. He has pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder. Local law enforcement is working with the Justice Department on the investigation.MARTÍNEZ: Vermont Public's Brittany Patterson is covering this. Brittany, tell us what happened last week.BRITTANY PATTERSON, BYLINE: Sure. So authorities say the three college students were visiting one of the victims' relatives here in Vermont over the Thanksgiving break - something they had done before. And they were doing typical college student break things - hanging out, eating, relaxing. Early on Saturday evening, the men were walking down a residential street, and two of them were wearing the traditional Palestinian scarf. They were speaking a mixture of English and Arabic, and authorities say they were confronted by a white man with a handgun. Police say Jason Eaton did not speak before opening fire.MARTÍNEZ: Who are the victims, and how are they doing?PATTERSON: Yeah, we've learned a lot more about these young men in recent days. One of them is Hisham Awartani. He goes to Brown University in Rhode Island. He's a math and archaeology major. Kinnan Abdalhamid attends Haverford College in Pennsylvania. He's studying biology. He runs track. And Tahseen Ahmad goes to Trinity College in Connecticut. He's also a math major. He's also pre-med and recently qualified to be an EMT. These boys have been friends for 12 years. They went to Quaker school together in the West Bank, and their family describes them as polite, generous, the brightest of the bright. You know, they did model U.N. together. The family said yesterday that they were grateful for the charges, but they fear that the young men were targeted for being Arab Americans. Elizabeth Price is Hisham's mom, and she spoke to NPR from her home in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.ELIZABETH PRICE: My husband didn't want Hisham to come back for Christmas 'cause he thought America would be safe - safer than in Palestine. And my husband is so bitter. He was worried about the boys being targeted as being Palestinian, but he thought in Burlington that wouldn't happen.PATTERSON: As of yesterday, all of the men remained in the ICU. Hisham's family said that the doctors told them it's unlikely he will be able to use his legs again. And I'll note Burlington's mayor spoke with President Joe Biden yesterday, who also pledged additional federal resources.MARTÍNEZ: Now, we know that authorities haven't revealed the suspect's motive, but they are investigating all this as a possible hate crime?PATTERSON: They are. And I want to note Vermont doesn't have a standalone hate crime charge. Instead, prosecutors can add what they call as a hate crime enhancement, and that's if the suspect's actions, they believe, are motivated by bias toward a protected class, like race. And the bar is really high with these hate crime enhancements. The state has to prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt. They need a lot of evidence, and authorities say that may not happen. If added to a charge, one of these enhancements could increase the criminal penalties that a suspect faces, although I'll note, in this case, the suspect, Eaton, already faces 20 to life for each of those attempted murder charges. So a state hate crime charge in this case wouldn't affect his sentence. And federal prosecutors could also bring a hate crime charge.MARTÍNEZ: And with Eaton - the suspect - how did he get the gun?PATTERSON: Yeah, so we learned a little more about him yesterday. Eaton himself is new to Vermont, according to authorities. Police say they've only had one interaction with him. It was a traffic stop, and there was nothing to note. And we learned that he purchased the gun legally a few months ago through a licensed firearms dealer in the state, and that sale was not flagged.MARTÍNEZ: OK, that's Vermont Public's Brittany Patterson. Brittany, thanks.PATTERSON: Thank you. A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: Authorities are investigating whether the shooting of three young men of Palestinian descent in Vermont was a hate crime. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: A 48-year-old man is being held in jail. He has pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder. Local law enforcement is working with the Justice Department on the investigation. MARTÍNEZ: Vermont Public's Brittany Patterson is covering this. Brittany, tell us what happened last week. BRITTANY PATTERSON, BYLINE: Sure. So authorities say the three college students were visiting one of the victims' relatives here in Vermont over the Thanksgiving break - something they had done before. And they were doing typical college student break things - hanging out, eating, relaxing. Early on Saturday evening, the men were walking down a residential street, and two of them were wearing the traditional Palestinian scarf. They were speaking a mixture of English and Arabic, and authorities say they were confronted by a white man with a handgun. Police say Jason Eaton did not speak before opening fire. MARTÍNEZ: Who are the victims, and how are they doing? PATTERSON: Yeah, we've learned a lot more about these young men in recent days. One of them is Hisham Awartani. He goes to Brown University in Rhode Island. He's a math and archaeology major. Kinnan Abdalhamid attends Haverford College in Pennsylvania. He's studying biology. He runs track. And Tahseen Ahmad goes to Trinity College in Connecticut. He's also a math major. He's also pre-med and recently qualified to be an EMT. These boys have been friends for 12 years. They went to Quaker school together in the West Bank, and their family describes them as polite, generous, the brightest of the bright. You know, they did model U.N. together. The family said yesterday that they were grateful for the charges, but they fear that the young men were targeted for being Arab Americans. Elizabeth Price is Hisham's mom, and she spoke to NPR from her home in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. ELIZABETH PRICE: My husband didn't want Hisham to come back for Christmas 'cause he thought America would be safe - safer than in Palestine. And my husband is so bitter. He was worried about the boys being targeted as being Palestinian, but he thought in Burlington that wouldn't happen. PATTERSON: As of yesterday, all of the men remained in the ICU. Hisham's family said that the doctors told them it's unlikely he will be able to use his legs again. And I'll note Burlington's mayor spoke with President Joe Biden yesterday, who also pledged additional federal resources. MARTÍNEZ: Now, we know that authorities haven't revealed the suspect's motive, but they are investigating all this as a possible hate crime? PATTERSON: They are. And I want to note Vermont doesn't have a standalone hate crime charge. Instead, prosecutors can add what they call as a hate crime enhancement, and that's if the suspect's actions, they believe, are motivated by bias toward a protected class, like race. And the bar is really high with these hate crime enhancements. The state has to prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt. They need a lot of evidence, and authorities say that may not happen. If added to a charge, one of these enhancements could increase the criminal penalties that a suspect faces, although I'll note, in this case, the suspect, Eaton, already faces 20 to life for each of those attempted murder charges. So a state hate crime charge in this case wouldn't affect his sentence. And federal prosecutors could also bring a hate crime charge. MARTÍNEZ: And with Eaton - the suspect - how did he get the gun? PATTERSON: Yeah, so we learned a little more about him yesterday. Eaton himself is new to Vermont, according to authorities. Police say they've only had one interaction with him. It was a traffic stop, and there was nothing to note. And we learned that he purchased the gun legally a few months ago through a licensed firearms dealer in the state, and that sale was not flagged. MARTÍNEZ: OK, that's Vermont Public's Brittany Patterson. Brittany, thanks. PATTERSON: Thank you. Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Advertisement <iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/hereandnow/2023/11/27/vermont-shooting-suspect-arrested"></iframe> Burlington Police arrested a 48-year-old man in connection with the shooting of three young men of Palestinian descent in Burlington on Saturday. The suspect was arraigned Monday, accused of shooting and seriously injuring Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Tahseen Ahmad, all college students visiting Burlington for Thanksgiving. Civil rights organizations and families of the victims are urging police to investigate the shooting as a possible hate crime. Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes speaks with Vermont Public’s Brittany Patterson. This segment aired on November 27, 2023. Advertisement

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From By  Brittany Patterson Authorities in Vermont are investigating the shootings of three men of Palestinian descent. The incident happened on Saturday as the trio of college students was walking in Burlington. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: In Vermont, authorities have arrested a suspect in the shooting of three young men of Palestinian descent. Police in Burlington announced in a press release that Jason J. Eaton was taken into custody Sunday afternoon after detectives completed a search of his residence near where the shooting took place. The 48-year-old is expected to be arraigned in court today. Earlier, authorities said it was too soon to call the incident a hate crime, but many in the community are worried that it is. Brittany Patterson with Vermont Public has this report.BRITTANY PATTERSON, BYLINE: Police say the three victims were all 20-year-old college students who lived out of state and were visiting one victim's relative for Thanksgiving in Burlington, Vermont's largest city. The men were walking down a residential street wearing kaffiyehs, the traditional Palestinian scarf, when authorities say they were confronted by a white man with a handgun. On Sunday, Burlington's police chief said in a statement the alleged gunman did not speak before opening fire and the motive is unknown. Multiple civil rights groups and the families of the three victims want authorities to investigate the shooting as a hate crime, and they're not alone.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: What kind of a crime?UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Hate crime.UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: What kind of a crime?UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Hate crime.PATTERSON: At a vigil in front of Burlington City Hall Sunday evening, a few hundred people gathered, including Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)DAVID ZUCKERMAN: I stand here to stand with oppressed people who now fear for their lives just walking down the street here in Burlington.PATTERSON: Wafic Faour is with the group Vermonters for Justice in Palestine. He says since the Israel-Hamas war began last month, he's called his family many times a day to check in.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)WAFIC FAOUR: And today, I received so many calls from my family members to ask me how am I. Is that possible in Vermont? Yes, it is possible.PATTERSON: Across the U.S., the FBI says it's seen a spike in threats and violence against Jewish, Arab and Muslim communities since the Hamas attack on October 7. Olivia Mosely (ph) came to the rally from nearby Essex.OLIVIA MOSELY: I think it's hard not to see the attempted murder of three young Palestinians wearing the Palestinian kaffiyeh, the scarf, at a time when we're seeing increased attacks throughout the U.S. - yeah, I mean, I don't think it's possible to separate those things.PATTERSON: The FBI is now helping in the investigation, but the Burlington police chief cautions it's still early, and he urged the public not to jump to conclusions about what happened Saturday night.For NPR News, I'm Brittany Patterson in Burlington, Vt. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: In Vermont, authorities have arrested a suspect in the shooting of three young men of Palestinian descent. Police in Burlington announced in a press release that Jason J. Eaton was taken into custody Sunday afternoon after detectives completed a search of his residence near where the shooting took place. The 48-year-old is expected to be arraigned in court today. Earlier, authorities said it was too soon to call the incident a hate crime, but many in the community are worried that it is. Brittany Patterson with Vermont Public has this report. BRITTANY PATTERSON, BYLINE: Police say the three victims were all 20-year-old college students who lived out of state and were visiting one victim's relative for Thanksgiving in Burlington, Vermont's largest city. The men were walking down a residential street wearing kaffiyehs, the traditional Palestinian scarf, when authorities say they were confronted by a white man with a handgun. On Sunday, Burlington's police chief said in a statement the alleged gunman did not speak before opening fire and the motive is unknown. Multiple civil rights groups and the families of the three victims want authorities to investigate the shooting as a hate crime, and they're not alone. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: What kind of a crime? UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Hate crime. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: What kind of a crime? UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Hate crime. PATTERSON: At a vigil in front of Burlington City Hall Sunday evening, a few hundred people gathered, including Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) DAVID ZUCKERMAN: I stand here to stand with oppressed people who now fear for their lives just walking down the street here in Burlington. PATTERSON: Wafic Faour is with the group Vermonters for Justice in Palestine. He says since the Israel-Hamas war began last month, he's called his family many times a day to check in. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) WAFIC FAOUR: And today, I received so many calls from my family members to ask me how am I. Is that possible in Vermont? Yes, it is possible. PATTERSON: Across the U.S., the FBI says it's seen a spike in threats and violence against Jewish, Arab and Muslim communities since the Hamas attack on October 7. Olivia Mosely (ph) came to the rally from nearby Essex. OLIVIA MOSELY: I think it's hard not to see the attempted murder of three young Palestinians wearing the Palestinian kaffiyeh, the scarf, at a time when we're seeing increased attacks throughout the U.S. - yeah, I mean, I don't think it's possible to separate those things. PATTERSON: The FBI is now helping in the investigation, but the Burlington police chief cautions it's still early, and he urged the public not to jump to conclusions about what happened Saturday night. For NPR News, I'm Brittany Patterson in Burlington, Vt. Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  The Associated Press In a still frame from video first responders use a gurney to remove an injured man from the scene of a shooting Saturday in Burlington, Vt. The Burlington Police Department arrested Jason J. Eaton, suspected in the shooting of three young men of Palestinian descent, who were attending a Thanksgiving holiday gathering near the University of Vermont campus Saturday evening. Wayne Savage via AP hide caption In a still frame from video first responders use a gurney to remove an injured man from the scene of a shooting Saturday in Burlington, Vt. The Burlington Police Department arrested Jason J. Eaton, suspected in the shooting of three young men of Palestinian descent, who were attending a Thanksgiving holiday gathering near the University of Vermont campus Saturday evening. BURLINGTON, Vt. — Three college students of Palestinian descent out for a walk in Vermont were seriously injured over the weekend when a man shot them at close range on a city street — an attack being investigated as a possible hate crime, authorities said Monday. Jason J. Eaton, 48, made his initial court appearance by video from jail on three counts of attempted murder, and a plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf on Monday. He was ordered held without bail. The U.S. Department of Justice, along with Vermont authorities, were investigating whether Saturday's shooting was a hate crime amid an increase in threats against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities across the U.S. since the Israel-Hamas war began, Attorney General Merrick Garland said. "There is understandable fear in communities across the country," he said. The three men, all age 20, were spending their Thanksgiving break in Burlington, and were out for a walk while visiting one of the victims' relatives when they were confronted by a white man with a handgun, police said. "They stated that the person had not made any comments to them and had merely approached them while they were walking down the street, essentially minding their own business," Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad told reporters. Two of the young men were struck in their torsos, while one was hit in the lower extremities, Murad said. All three were being treated at the University of Vermont Medical Center, and one faces a long recovery because of a spinal injury, a family member said. "I've been with them almost constantly since Saturday evening. I've been listening to them talk to one another and try to process the events, and I'm blown away by their resilience, by their good humor in the face of these difficult times," said Rich Price, the uncle of one of the students. The Institute for Middle East Understanding, in a statement from victims' families on X, formerly known as Twitter, identified the men as Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad. "We are extremely concerned about the safety and well-being of our children," the statement said. "We call on law enforcement to conduct a thorough investigation, including treating this as a hate crime. We will not be comfortable until the shooter is brought to justice." The three shooting victims have been friends since first grade at Ramallah Friends School, a private school in the West Bank, and all are "remarkable, distinguished students," said Rania Ma'ayeh, head of the school. Awartani is studying mathematics and archaeology at Brown University in Rhode Island; Abdalhamid is a pre-med student at Haverford College in Pennsylvania; and Ali Ahmad is studying mathematics and IT at Trinity College in Connecticut, Ma'ayeh said. Awartani and Abdalhamid are U.S. citizens while Ali Ahmad is studying on a student visa, Ma'ayeh said. "Our students are not safe in their own country because of the occupation. They're studying abroad and have a bright future ahead of them, and look at what happens," she said. "This has deeply shaken us." Abdalhamid's uncle Radi Tamimi, who flew from California and spoke Monday at the press conference, shared a similar sentiment. "Kinnan grew up in the West Bank and we always thought that that could be more of a risk in terms of his safety and sending him here would be a right decision," the uncle said. "We feel somehow betrayed in that decision here and we're just trying to come to terms with everything." Eaton moved to Burlington over the summer from Syracuse, New York, and legally purchased the gun used in the shooting, Murad told reporters. According to a police affidavit, federal agents found the gun in Eaton's apartment on Sunday. Eaton came to the door holding his hands, palms up, and told the officers he'd been waiting for them. Syracuse police said Eaton's name appeared in 37 police reports from 2007 until 2021, but never as a suspect. The cases ranged from domestic violence to larceny, and Eaton was listed as either a complainant or victim in 21 reports, according to Lt. Matthew Malinowski, the department's public information officer. Price, Awartani's uncle, said the gunman "shot them without saying any words" and that the family suspects they were targets of a hate crime. "The family's fear is that this was motivated by hate, that these young men were targeted because they were Arabs," Price said. The victims were speaking in a mix of English and Arabic and two of them were also wearing the black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh scarves when they were shot, Murad said. Speaking at a news conference, Sarah George, state's attorney, said law enforcement officials do not yet have evidence to support a hate crime charge, which under Vermont law must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. But, she said, "I do want to be clear that there is no question that this was a hateful act." Murad echoed George's language. "Whether or not this is a hate crime by the law, it was a hateful act. It's one that we abhor," he said. "And anybody who steps out from a porch and attacks three random passersby for whatever reason, he's expressing a form of hate." Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger, who called it "one of the most shocking and disturbing events in the city's history," said he spoke to President Joe Biden on Monday. Biden said he and his wife were horrified by the shooting and were praying that the students make a full recovery. "While we are waiting for more facts, we know this: there is absolutely no place for violence or hate in America. Period. No person should worry about being shot at while going about their daily lives," Biden said in a statement. Burlington has gone from a city that typically saw two shootings per year to one that experienced 26 in 2022, said Murad, who created a task force last year to address the increase. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent, also denounced the shooting. "It is shocking and deeply upsetting that three young Palestinians were shot here in Burlington, Vermont. Hate has no place here, or anywhere. I look forward to a full investigation," Sanders said in a statement. Gov. Phil Scott said the shooting was a tragedy, and called on the state's residents to unite and "not let this incident incite more hate or divisiveness." Demonstrations have been widespread and tensions in the U.S. have escalated as the death toll rises in the Israel-Hamas war. A fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas was set to continue for two more days past Monday as 11 more hostages were handed over to the Red Cross in Gaza under what was originally a four-day truce deal. Last month, an Illinois landlord was charged with a hate crime after being accused of fatally stabbing a 6-year-old Muslim boy and seriously wounding his mother in suburban Chicago. Police and relatives said he singled out the victims because of their faith. University of Vermont graduate student Jacob Friz-Trillo, who lives down the street from where the weekend shootings took place, said he believes "New England itself has sort of a different type of racism than the rest of the United States," but that the violence was out of character in a city regarded as "super liberal." Ma'ayeh said the most recent attack shows safety must improve. "This incident is a reminder of the urgency to change the discourse, which has dehumanized Palestinians. They are people who are deserving of empathy, compassion, rights, freedom, happiness and life," she said. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  Paolo Zialcita One year after a gunman attacked a Colorado Springs gay nightclub killing five people and injuring 17 others, the community gathered to remember the victims. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: One year after a mass shooting at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs, the club's owners announced they'll build a permanent memorial. Survivors and members of the local queer community say Club Q has been important for their culture. Paolo Zialcita with Colorado Public Radio attended two memorials.PAOLO ZIALCITA, BYLINE: Club Q has been closed since the shooting. Yesterday, hundreds of people gathered to remember and honor those affected. As pop hits by Britney Spears, Natasha Bedingfield and others played in the background, members of the LGBTQ community, survivors and the families of victims lit incense and left flowers in front of memorials dedicated to the five people killed. Wyatt Kent, a drag queen who was performing the night of the shooting, said it was an opportunity to celebrate the memories of those lost.WYATT KENT: It's been beautiful the way that the community has wrapped itself around me and other survivors, as well as victims' families, and have allowed us to be open, vulnerable and allow ourselves to pour back into the community ourselves.ZIALCITA: The first event Sunday was organized by Club Q's owners. Employees, elected officials and others spoke to those gathered. The second was organized by a local law firm, which invited people to beautify life-sized posters of victims on the club's exterior wall. Cynthia Duehr remembers Club Q as a safe space for the Colorado Springs queer community. She grew up there and went to all-ages cookouts in the club's parking lot.CYNTHIA DUEHR: There would be people who got it, and then some elder queers to kind of show the way that it could be and show queer joy, which is not something you're used to, especially as a queer child in high school.ZIALCITA: Rico Marquez came to the event wrapped in a pride flag.RICO MARQUEZ: I've been coming to Club Q for about a few years now. It's actually where I met - where I've had my first date with my boyfriend, now my fiance.ZIALCITA: Club Q co-owner Matthew Haynes updated people who came to the event on the next stages of building a permanent memorial.MATTHEW HAYNES: We have spent the last year working with the architect firm HBNA and the City of Colorado Springs to modify the building development plan to allow a permanent tribute garden, consisting of a flagpole surrounded by five columns, 17 boulders and benches for reflection.ZIALCITA: The memorial will be built in front of the entrance to the building where the shooting happened. But Haynes has been planning to move the club to a new location in Colorado Springs under a new name. There's no clear timeline for when that will happen. For NPR News, I'm Paolo Zialcita in Colorado Springs.(SOUNDBITE OF ZACHARY DAWES AND NICK SENA'S "GIVE IT A WHIRL") JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: One year after a mass shooting at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs, the club's owners announced they'll build a permanent memorial. Survivors and members of the local queer community say Club Q has been important for their culture. Paolo Zialcita with Colorado Public Radio attended two memorials. PAOLO ZIALCITA, BYLINE: Club Q has been closed since the shooting. Yesterday, hundreds of people gathered to remember and honor those affected. As pop hits by Britney Spears, Natasha Bedingfield and others played in the background, members of the LGBTQ community, survivors and the families of victims lit incense and left flowers in front of memorials dedicated to the five people killed. Wyatt Kent, a drag queen who was performing the night of the shooting, said it was an opportunity to celebrate the memories of those lost. WYATT KENT: It's been beautiful the way that the community has wrapped itself around me and other survivors, as well as victims' families, and have allowed us to be open, vulnerable and allow ourselves to pour back into the community ourselves. ZIALCITA: The first event Sunday was organized by Club Q's owners. Employees, elected officials and others spoke to those gathered. The second was organized by a local law firm, which invited people to beautify life-sized posters of victims on the club's exterior wall. Cynthia Duehr remembers Club Q as a safe space for the Colorado Springs queer community. She grew up there and went to all-ages cookouts in the club's parking lot. CYNTHIA DUEHR: There would be people who got it, and then some elder queers to kind of show the way that it could be and show queer joy, which is not something you're used to, especially as a queer child in high school. ZIALCITA: Rico Marquez came to the event wrapped in a pride flag. RICO MARQUEZ: I've been coming to Club Q for about a few years now. It's actually where I met - where I've had my first date with my boyfriend, now my fiance. ZIALCITA: Club Q co-owner Matthew Haynes updated people who came to the event on the next stages of building a permanent memorial. MATTHEW HAYNES: We have spent the last year working with the architect firm HBNA and the City of Colorado Springs to modify the building development plan to allow a permanent tribute garden, consisting of a flagpole surrounded by five columns, 17 boulders and benches for reflection. ZIALCITA: The memorial will be built in front of the entrance to the building where the shooting happened. But Haynes has been planning to move the club to a new location in Colorado Springs under a new name. There's no clear timeline for when that will happen. For NPR News, I'm Paolo Zialcita in Colorado Springs. (SOUNDBITE OF ZACHARY DAWES AND NICK SENA'S "GIVE IT A WHIRL") Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  The Associated Press This photo released by Memphis Police Department on Saturday Nov. 18, 2023, shows shooting suspect Mavis Christian Jr. AP hide caption This photo released by Memphis Police Department on Saturday Nov. 18, 2023, shows shooting suspect Mavis Christian Jr. MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A suspect in Tennessee died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot while on the run early Sunday after he allegedly killed four and seriously injured a fifth victim during a deadly outbreak of domestic violence Saturday night, police said. Officers found Mavis Christian Jr., 52, in his car during a manhunt following the shootings at three locations in Memphis that left three women and a teenage girl dead and critically wounded another teen girl. Memphis Police Department officers responded to a report of a shooting at 9:22 p.m. on the 100 Block of Howard Drive. Police found a woman with an apparent gunshot wound who was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators determined there were two other connected fatal shootings. At Field Lark Drive, a woman and a 13-year-old girl were killed and a 15-year-old girl was critically wounded. Another woman was found fatally shot on Warrington Road, Memphis Police Officer Christopher Williams said. Police believed Christian was responsible for all three shootings and began a search involving local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Each of the shootings was believed to be a domestic violence situation, the police said. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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By  The Associated Press Police work outside the New Hampshire Hospital where officials said several people were shot on Friday. Geoff Forester/The Concord Monitor via AP hide caption Police work outside the New Hampshire Hospital where officials said several people were shot on Friday. CONCORD, N.H. — A shooter killed one person in the lobby of New Hampshire's state psychiatric hospital on Friday before being fatally shot by a state trooper, officials said. The shooting happened around 3:30 p.m. at New Hampshire Hospital and was contained to the front lobby of the 185-bed facility, State Police Col. Mark Hall said at a news conference. He said CPR was performed on the victim, who later died at Concord Hospital. Authorities said all patients at the psychiatric hospital were safe, and that the state trooper who killed the shooter was not wounded. No further information was released about the victim, the shooter or possible motive. Friday's shooting was the latest act of violence at a U.S. hospital. Medical centers nationwide have struggled to adapt to the growing threats, which have helped make health care one of the nation's most violent fields. It came weeks after 18 people were killed and 13 others injured in a mass shooting in neighboring Maine. The hospital remained in operation but was closed to visitors Friday evening, said Lori Weaver, commissioner commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Services. "This is a difficult and unimaginable day for our employees and for our community," she said. "We will continue to make resources available in the coming hours and days." "Our dedicated staff will continue to provide skilled, compassionate care as they do every day," she said. The facility is the only state-run psychiatric hospital for adults in New Hampshire. Located in the capital city, it is part of a large state office park that includes multiple state agencies and is near the city's high school and district courthouse. The Department of Safety provides security for the hospital. Democratic U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster called the shooting "horrifying" in a statement that asked the public to stay away from the hospital while police were still on the scene. "Thank you to the State Police Officers who responded to the scene so quickly," Kuster said in a statement. "My thoughts are with the victim, their family, and the Concord community." Other members of the state's congressional delegation also released statements of support. "The state immediately mobilized, and first responders and law enforcement are on the scene," Gov. Chris Sununu said in a statement. "We will provide as many details as possible as this situation unfolds." Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

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Just weeks after a mass shooting killed 18 people in Lewiston, Maine, the city is celebrating a state championship for the high school boys' soccer team. A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: Just a few weeks ago, a gunman took the lives of 18 people in Lewiston, Maine. Schools and businesses shut down temporarily as police searched for the shooter. Now, as the community looks to recover, they have much better news.(CHEERING)STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: The Lewiston High School boys soccer team are state champs. They won 3-2 over Deering. You just heard celebrations after a last-minute winning goal, which was recorded by Adam Robinson with "Maine Sports Today."MARTÍNEZ: Dan Gish is the head coach. He says his players love soccer so much they continued to train during last month's lockdown.DAN GISH: You know, there's four National Guard helicopters on our grass field, and there's 30 different law enforcement agencies, and these guys still find a way to go kick on the pitch.INSKEEP: Coach Dan Gish says the situation was stressful as they headed into the championship.GISH: It's a lot of pressure to win. They said they were going to do it for their city. And, you know, you worry about the pressure for them, and they handled it, and they got it done. It was really special.MARTÍNEZ: Ahmed Abdow is a defender on the team. He says winning the state championship is a dream come true.AHMED ABDOW: I feel happy for the boys and the city. After what has happened, just, like, an eye-opener, you know? Like, there's hope in the town, you know? It's a great way to bring the city together.INSKEEP: You know, this is the school's fourth championship win. The first was back in 2015. The team's goalie, Payson Goyette, was a fan back then and remembers that moment.PAYSON GOYETTE: I went to that game. I've been wanting to win a championship ever since then, and it means a lot to bring it back home, especially with everything that's happened.MARTÍNEZ: The community will cheer the Lewiston Blue Devils, as they're known, at events in the coming weeks, and Coach Gish says they've got a lot more than soccer to celebrate.GISH: We've got guys from Angola, Somalia, Kenya, and French Canadian kids are playing, and we show the world how you should get along. It doesn't matter where you're from on this team, as long as you do it for each other and you're a good person.INSKEEP: A different sort of victory.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: Just a few weeks ago, a gunman took the lives of 18 people in Lewiston, Maine. Schools and businesses shut down temporarily as police searched for the shooter. Now, as the community looks to recover, they have much better news. (CHEERING) STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: The Lewiston High School boys soccer team are state champs. They won 3-2 over Deering. You just heard celebrations after a last-minute winning goal, which was recorded by Adam Robinson with "Maine Sports Today." MARTÍNEZ: Dan Gish is the head coach. He says his players love soccer so much they continued to train during last month's lockdown. DAN GISH: You know, there's four National Guard helicopters on our grass field, and there's 30 different law enforcement agencies, and these guys still find a way to go kick on the pitch. INSKEEP: Coach Dan Gish says the situation was stressful as they headed into the championship. GISH: It's a lot of pressure to win. They said they were going to do it for their city. And, you know, you worry about the pressure for them, and they handled it, and they got it done. It was really special. MARTÍNEZ: Ahmed Abdow is a defender on the team. He says winning the state championship is a dream come true. AHMED ABDOW: I feel happy for the boys and the city. After what has happened, just, like, an eye-opener, you know? Like, there's hope in the town, you know? It's a great way to bring the city together. INSKEEP: You know, this is the school's fourth championship win. The first was back in 2015. The team's goalie, Payson Goyette, was a fan back then and remembers that moment. PAYSON GOYETTE: I went to that game. I've been wanting to win a championship ever since then, and it means a lot to bring it back home, especially with everything that's happened. MARTÍNEZ: The community will cheer the Lewiston Blue Devils, as they're known, at events in the coming weeks, and Coach Gish says they've got a lot more than soccer to celebrate. GISH: We've got guys from Angola, Somalia, Kenya, and French Canadian kids are playing, and we show the world how you should get along. It doesn't matter where you're from on this team, as long as you do it for each other and you're a good person. INSKEEP: A different sort of victory. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor

state champs

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